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Chrono Cross

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Chrono Cross
Chrono Cross North American Box Art
Developer(s)Square Co.
Publisher(s)Japan Square Co.
United States Square EA
Platform(s)PlayStation
ReleaseJapan November 18, 1999
United States August 15, 2000
Genre(s)RPG
Mode(s)Single player

Chrono Cross (クロノ・クロス, Kurono Kurosu) is a PlayStation RPG created by Square Co. (now Square Enix). It expands upon the plot of its prequel, Chrono Trigger. Unlike its predecessor's "Dream Team", Chrono Cross was developed primarily by scenarist and director Masato Kato and other programmers for Chrono Trigger, such as art director Yasuyuki Honne and sound planner Minoru Akao. Composer Yasunori Mitsuda scored the game, while character design for Chrono Cross was done by Escaflowne character designer Nobuteru Yūki.[1]

Chrono Cross was released in United States in 2000 to high ratings and critical acclaim.[2] Chrono Cross sold well in the United States, leading to two Greatest Hits rereleases. However, there has been no new Chrono title to date, and it is rumored that poor Japanese sales of Chrono Cross are to blame.[citation needed] Chrono Cross has not been officially released in PAL territories; Square has cited a combination of economic and technical expenses involved with formatting the game as the cause.[citation needed]

Chrono Cross employs certain stories, characters, and thematic elements from Radical Dreamers, a side story to Chrono Trigger released in Japan for the Satellaview add-on to the Super Famicom. It was an illustrated text adventure meant to wrap up loose ends from its predecessor.[3] Though it borrows from Radical Dreamers in its exposition, Chrono Cross is not simply a remake of Radical Dreamers, but moreover a larger effort to fulfill the purpose of that game.[3]

Gameplay

As a standard RPG, the player, controlling Serge, explores the tropical archipelago of El Nido by foot and boat, battles monsters, and generally interacts with people and objects. Amongst the islands are many villages, outdoor areas, and dungeons, which the player moves through in three dimensions. Traversing between islands is done through the use of a "world map". While in town, players may converse with the locals, buy and sell items, or otherwise procure whatever services are available in that town.

In the various areas of the game, monsters often visibly scurry around, sometimes with the intent to confront the player. If Serge touches the monster, the game switches to a battle screen, where Serge must fight the monster or run away. Battles are turn-based, allowing the player ample time to select an action from the available menu before it takes place.

A battle from Chrono Cross

Elements are a major feature of Chrono Cross. Similar to the materia of Final Fantasy VII, elements are items that must be equipped in order to cast the spell they contain. Elements are divided into six types, each with a natural effect. They include fire, water, greenery, earth, white, and black. Each character has an innate color, enhancing power of same-color Elements used. These devices can be purchased from shops or found in treasure chests littered throughout areas. Elements are equipped onto a character's element grid, which grows in size and power as the player advances the plot. Characters also innately learn some special techniques, called "Techs", that are unique to each character but otherwise act like Elements. Like Chrono Trigger, certain Techs can be combined to make a Double or Triple Tech, powerful attacks involving multiple characters, though there are a very few number of combinations compared to that game.

Unlike Elements, weapons and armor cannot be purchased; instead, the player must purchase or find base materials—such as copper, bronze, or bone—and take them to a blacksmith to be forged for a fee. The strongest items require hard to find materials. In addition to these, certain accessories can be equipped with special effects, such as the Power Seal, which upgrades attack power. Many items can be found, like Elements, in the wild within treasure chests. The last element of battle is the Stamina bar. At the beginning of a battle, each character has seven points of stamina. As a character attacks or uses an Element, stamina is decreased until other characters or the enemies attack; it is then slowly recovered. Characters with very low or no Stamina must wait before they can fight again. Additionally, some Elements require a certain Stamina level to use. The level up stars, weapons and armor forging, stamina bar, and Elements distinguish Chrono Cross as having a unique combat system, the result of a conscious effort to innovate.[4]

The existence of two dimensions also plays a significant role in the game, akin to the role of time periods in Chrono Trigger. Through the course of Chrono Cross, the player must go back and forth between two parallel dimensions to recruit party members, obtain items, or undertake other advancements in the story. Much of the population of either world have counterparts in the other; some party members can even visit the other version of him or herself. The player must often search for items or places that can be only found in one of the worlds. Additionally, events in one dimension sometime have an impact in another—for instance, cooling the scorched ground on an island can allow a new person to be recruited to the party from the other world. Using these faculties, the player travels through the game while learning the story, eventually taking part in a final showdown and watching a cinematic ending.

Story

Main article: Chrono Cross Plot

Template:Spoiler The story of Chrono Cross begins with a boy of seventeen years named Serge who is instructed to collect colorful scales on the beach. The setting is El Nido, a topical archipelago inhabited by ancient natives, colonists from other continents, and anthromorphic, sentient beings called Demi-humans—often the subject of racial prejudice.[5] While meeting up with his girlfriend after the trip, Serge slips into an alternate dimension in which he drowned ten years before the present at the same spot. Baffled at the existence of this world and desiring to know more, Serge meets up with a famous thief Kid, a teenage girl intent on finding a mysterious artifact known as the Frozen Flame. In search of this item, they recruit help and infiltrate Viper Manor, the home of the Acacia Dragoons—the combative, affluent, and revered self-proclaimed protectors of the island. While there, a mysterious man known as the prophet of time revealed that ten years from the present, the universe split into two dimensions—one in which Serge lived (Home world), and one in which he perished (Another world).[6]

As the game progresses, Serge continues to learn more about his past while searching for the Frozen Flame. Along the way, he switches bodies with the main antagonist, and later learns after retrieving his old form that all the events of the game were masterminded for one purpose. Serge's quest is meant to empower him to save Schala from the Time Devourer—a fusion of Lavos, the alien parasite from Chrono Trigger with the capacity to destroy the planet, and Schala, a princess of Zeal and sister of Magus with immense magical power who has disappeared into the Darkness Beyond Time.[7] Years in the future, Belthasar, a former guru of Zeal, discovered that the two were merging into a being capable of consuming all spacetime; he thus set in motion a massively complex chain of events meant to give rise to and guide Serge to confront the Time Devourer and use an artifact known as the Chrono Cross to restore the dimensions to one and free Schala from Lavos's grasp.[8]

While Chrono Cross incorporates elements from Radical Dreamers, the stories of the two games are incompatible. To resolve the scenario continuity issue and to acknowledge the existence of Radical Dreamers, the designers suggested that the events of Radical Dreamers did happen, but took place in a parallel dimension. [9] The most notable difference is that Magus, present in Radical Dreamers as Magil, is absent from the game. Magus does not assume the identity Guile in Chrono Cross, as is commonly assumed. It was noted in an interview that the developers originally planned for Magus to appear, but scrapped the idea due to difficulties in presenting his story.[10]

File:Chrono-Cross-title-screen.jpg
Chrono Cross title screen

Characters

Chrono Cross features a large and diverse cast with forty-five possible party members available. To create the cast, the developers thought of archetypes and brainstormed interesting traits which were later fleshed out to full characters.[11] Originally, sixty-four were planned. [12] Each character is outfitted with an innate Element affinity and three special abilities of his or her own. Some techniques can be combined into Double and Triple Techs in battle. Additionally, characters react to their other world counterparts (if available). Many party members tie in to crucial events; since it is impossible to obtain all forty-five in one playthrough, the player must replay the game to witness everything. Through use of the New Game + feature, all characters can eventually be obtained on one save file.[13]

While the presence of six elements is a departure from Chrono Trigger's limit at four, the game does provide an explanation for the change—that Chrono Trigger's magic was the manipulating of the basic four fundamental properties of the universe, and Chrono Cross's magic is the use of manufactured tools to effect changes in nature.[14] Because of the incredibly vast number of possible party combinations, the North American version of the game contains a system to modify base text for each character's accent. Whereas other games would need to program different blocks of text for each character, Chrono Cross uses a basic text template and modifies it based on the character speaking.[15]

The templates were very complicated, as several periods had to be inserted to reflect the huge array of changes that could arise from an accent. For example, a basic line appeared like this in the script:[16] 

Member Name:
l.et's2 .go.suffix, Serge..
the w.ater1 .Dr3agon .mus1t .be.
be.yondth1is1 .point...

White innate characters

White is a more mystical element than others, encompassing light, holiness, and healing. One of the characters with a White element is a religious person. White innate characters have access to the most powerful healing spells in the game. White corresponds to Chrono Trigger's "Lightning" element, which in the original Japanese version was actually known as 天, ten, meaning "Heaven". (Heaven included lightning spells because lightning comes down from the heavens.) It was renamed Lightning in the English localization due to Nintendo of America's strictly enforced policy which demanded that any and all religious references be omitted from North American versions of games. Note that the character Pip is capable of evolving and, in doing so, changing his element.

Black innate characters

Black is a darker element than others. Two of the characters with a Black element are undead or spirits. Great with offensive magic. This roughly corresponds to the "Shadow" element from Chrono Trigger.

Red innate characters

Red innate characters have a high focus on power. Many of the Red characters are some of the most powerful. Naturally, red is the element of fire and lava. In Chrono Trigger, it was simply called, "Fire".

Blue innate characters

Blue innate characters are good healers and offensive magic users. Leena is one of the best healers. Blue is the element of water and ice. This matches Chrono Trigger, in which Marle uses ice magic but as labeled "Water" like Frog.

Green innate characters

Green innate characters are good healers as well as good offensive magic users, like Razzly, and also good with physical attacks, like Glenn and Karsh. Green is the element of air and nature. It has no equivalent in Chrono Trigger.

Yellow innate characters

Great offensive fighters. Some of the most powerful characters, especially Leah. Yellow magic is rooted in electricity and earth. However, it does not correspond with any element in Chrono Trigger; Trigger's Lightning element is merely an invention of its localization team (the original element being Heaven).

Returning characters

Six characters from Chrono Trigger return in the sequel. These characters, however, are not playable and only make brief appearances, though some fans have speculated that some of the game's player characters are in fact Chrono Trigger characters (especially Magus) going by another name. Even so, there is a severe amount of confusion as to what truly became of them during the gap between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross.

  • Crono - Crono appears as a spirit on two different occasions; once in the Dead Sea, and again near the portal to Lavos.
  • Marle - Marle appears as a spirit on three different occasions; once while the party enters the Hydra Marshes, again in the Dead Sea, and last near the portal to Lavos.
  • Lucca - Lucca appears in more than one form. She first appears in the Dead Sea, as the spirit of a child. Later, when you're in Kid's memory, you will see her for a brief instance as Lynx takes her away, to assist him in his plans. She once again appears as a spirit, near the portal to Lavos.
  • Robo - Robo appears in Chronopolis, under the name Prometheus. He is used to keep FATE locked up, and after talking to Serge and company, he is executed by FATE.
  • Magus - In a letter sent by Lucca, she says to Kid that Janus may be watching over her, and "if so, hello, Janus!" Some claim that he was in the room, based on a human-shaped shadow that appears when the letter is being read.
  • Lavos - Lavos returns as the main villain of the game, but never appears until the very end of the game. While Serge and company believed that breaking FATE's seal on the Dragons was a good idea, it turned out that they were not the Dragons they had once been, their original united form having been assimilated by Lavos' Devourer of Time form. As the Time Devourer, Lavos had Schala attached to him, this being due to Lavos' existence being cast into the Darkness Beyond Time -- where Schala had previously been banished by Lavos -- once Chrono and his friends from Chrono Trigger defeated him.
  • Ozzie, Slash, and Flea - Appearing in a hidden boss fight, the three have no bearing on the plot. Sprigg can learn to transform into any member of the trio. As Slash, she can perform the "Z Slash" triple tech when teamed with Serge and Kid.

Character relationships

It is revealed at many points different relationships between playable and non-playable characters. Here's a list of relationships.

  • Serge - Boyfriend of Leena, Son of Wazuki/Lynx
  • Pip - Specimen of Luccia
  • Riddel - Daughter of General Viper, Fiancé of Dario, Sister in-law of Glenn, Friend of Karsh
  • Lynx - Father of Serge
  • Wazuki - Original identity of Serge's father
  • Miguel - Friend of Wazuki, father of Leena
  • Guile - None (was going to be Magus, Schala's brother, but his backstory was dropped due to complications)
  • Luccia - Friend of Lucca
  • Kid - Daughter-clone of Schala, raised by Lucca
  • Miki - Lead dancer for Nikki's show
  • Macha - Mother of Korcha and Mel
  • Zappa - Father of Karsh, Husband of Zippa
  • Zippa - Mother of Karsh, Wife of Zappa
  • Marcy - Acacia Deva, Daughter of Fargo, Sister of Nikki, Niece of Irenes
  • Fargo - Brother-in-law of Irenes, Father of Nikki and Marcy
  • Nikki - Son of Fargo, Brother of Marcy, Nephew of Irenes, Friend of Miki
  • Irenes - Sister-in-law of Fargo, Aunt of Nikki and Marcy
  • Leena - Girlfriend of Serge, Daughter of Miguel
  • Una - Sister of Leena, Daughter of Miguel
  • Korcha - Son of Macha, Brother of Mel
  • Glenn - Brother of Dario, Son of Garai, Friend of Karsh and Riddel
  • Radius - Friend of Viper, Serge, the three Devas, Glenn, Riddel and Garai; Former Acacia Deva; Murderer of Garai
  • Karsh - Acacia Deva, Son of Zappa and Zippa, Friend of Glenn, Riddel and Radius
  • General Viper - Acacia Dragoons leader; Friend of Lynx, Glenn, Radius, Dario, and Karsh; Father of Riddel
  • Mel - Daughter of Macha, Sister of Korcha
  • Garai - Father of Glenn and Dario, Wielder of Einlanzer, Friend of Radius
  • Dario - Brother of Glenn, Son of Garai, Friend of Karsh, Fiancé of Riddel, Wielder of Masamune
  • Harle {Harlequin} - Mysterious woman who works for Lynx. Has a crush on Serge. Later found out to be the seventh Dark Moon Dragon, daughter of the Sky Dragon, and a spy for the dragons.

Template:Endspoiler

Music

A three-CD official soundtrack was released soon after the game, and it eventually sold out. Yasunori Mitsuda noted in the OST's liner notes that he was happy to accomplish even half of what he envisioned in terms of transferring his ideas to the PlayStation's sound capabilities. (In this task he was ably assisted by Ryo Yamazaki, a highly-skilled synthesizer programmer for Square Enix.) He also named several influences in the liner notes, including a Mediterranean theme, Fado music, African percussion and old music from several cultures — most notably Celtic. After Chrono Cross was completed, Mitsuda personally undertook a playthrough to observe how the tracks matched up to their correspondent scenes and settings in the game.

The Chrono Cross OST sold out a year or two after its release; like many other soundtracks, it was bootlegged and sold cheaply thereafter. Square Enix recently reissued it due to popular demand. Currently, the only legitimate retailer specified by Procyon Studio, Mitsuda's homepage, is Amazon Japan [1].

Awards/Ratings

This is a list of various awards and overall ratings that the game has so far received.

Also, GameSpot has reviewed over 1100+ games and has only given 4 of them a perfect 10/10. Chrono Cross is one of them.

As of January 2006, Rottentomatoes.com gives a rating of 92% for Chrono Cross, Gamerankings.com provides a rating of 93%, and the fan ratings on GameSpot averages to 9.3/10.

"Chrono Break"

Square applied for a trademark for the name Chrono Break in the U.S., late 2001, resulting in speculation by fans of the possibility of a sequel. However, the trademark was dropped in the United States on November 13, 2003, confirmed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The trademark still stands in Japan, where it was registered as Chrono Brake. It is suspected that the project had been planned at one point (with one of the original Chrono Trigger project leads at the helm, and not the Chrono Cross/Xenogears/Final Fantasy XI staff), but cancelled before production could begin. Focus on other games such as the Final Fantasy series may have also contributed to Square's abandonment of this title.

Packaging artwork

References

  1. ^ Credits for Chrono Cross, MobyGames. Retrieved July 1 2006.
  2. ^ Chrono Cross Reviews, Gamerankings.com. Retrieved July 1 2006.
  3. ^ a b Kato: There's a long story behind that, but to keep it short... After finishing Chrono Trigger, we created a game called "Radical Dreamers". Although we hadn't planned it that way initially, Radical Dreamers eventually ended up as a sort of sequel to one of the subplots in Chrono Trigger which we weren't able to tie up in Chrono Trigger itself. When Radical Dreamers was finished, we did Xenogears, and when talk turned to what to do after that, we decided to redo Radical Dreamers properly.Interview with Chrono Cross development team. Weekly Famitsu, July 1999. Retrieved from Chrono Compendium July 1 2006.
  4. ^ Hiromichi Tanaka: Actually, I'm the one who incorporated the original summon magic system into Final Fantasy. At the time, summon magic was designed to be an "ace-in-the-hole" move because of its high MP casting cost. The battle system concept in FF VIII takes a totally different approach and is only similar in name. The system concept in Chrono Cross is also designed from a different perspective than the original FF, or the newer FF VIII or IX. Therefore, there was no conscious incorporation of any particular system from other recent titles when we designed the system for Chrono Cross. Interview with Chrono Cross Development Team, GamePro. Retrieved from Chrono Compendium (original page removed) July 1, 2006.
  5. ^ Direa: 'Tis sad...The mainland teachings state that humans and demi-humans are incompatible species. Chrono Cross. Square Co., 1999.
  6. ^ Prophet: In your home world, you survived to live a happy and prosperous life. That is how you made it to the present point in time. However, here in this '"alternate"' world, you are, in fact, very dead and buried. You died 10 years ago, but this world's time line has flowed on regardless. Chrono Cross. Square Co., 1999.
  7. ^ Lucca: And now, about '"Project Kid"'...the time control project Belthasar planned out. The whole project existed to lead you to this one, special point in time! The founding of Chronopolis, the Time Crash, and the battle between FATE and the Dragon Gods...It was all coordinated so that you would get your hands on the Chrono Cross and come to this place! Chrono Cross. Square Co., 1999.
  8. ^ Crono: The Chrono Cross...It alone can combine the sounds of the planet that the six types of Elements produce! The melody and harmony that brim within all life-forms... Use the '"song of life"' to heal her enmity and suffering...We entreat you, Serge! Please save Schala... Chrono Cross. Square Co., 1999.
  9. ^ Kid: Kid: Radical Dreamers...!? And me name's on here, too! What the bloody hell is goin' on?
    Kid: ......This seems to be an archive from a different time than our own.
    Kid: Aside from the two worlds we already know about...there may be other worlds and times which exist... Chrono Cross. Square Co., 1999.
  10. ^ Masato Kato: To let the cat out of the bag, in the early stages of development, Guile was indeed meant to be Magus. In our original plan, the true identity of Guile was supposed to be Magus after the events in Trigger. (At the end of Trigger, Magus [a.k.a. Janus in Trigger and Magil in Radical Dreamers] disappeared into a Time Gate to go searching for his big sister, Schala, who was lost somewhere in time.) However, as the game's development progressed and we decided to use such a huge number of playable characters, we decided not to make him be Magus. We thought it was impossible to portray the relationship between Magus and Schala adequately in this game. So we changed tracks, made the colors of the Magus character design paler, and turned him into Guile, the magician. In a way, it's a pity, as I really would like to have seen the valiant figure of Magus come to life again. Interview with Chrono Cross Development Team, GamePro. Retrieved from Chrono Compendium (original page removed) July 1, 2006.
  11. ^ Masato Kato: Take Pierre, for example: we started off by saying we wanted a wacko fake hero like Tata from Trigger. We also said things like "we need at least one powerful mom," "no way we're gonna go without a twisted brat," and so on so forth. Basically a bunch of selfish wishes (laugh). Also, the staff as a whole came up with many ideas of what types of characters we wanted to put in the party. Mojo was actually a test 3D model of a doll made by one of our staff early in development. I decided, based on personal taste, "This guy's cool. Let's make him join the party!" Everyone probably thought I was just making a joke, though (laugh). Interview with Chrono Cross Development Team, GamePro. Retrieved from Chrono Compendium (original page removed) July 1, 2006.
  12. ^ Masato Kato: After all, the original idea during the initial development stage was "let's go for 64 characters!" (laugh). Interview with Chrono Cross Development Team, GamePro. Retrieved from Chrono Compendium (original page removed) July 1, 2006.
  13. ^ Character FAQ, Daredevil3811. Retrieved July 1 2006.
  14. ^ Spekkio: Not just magic, but EVERYTHING is based on the balance of these 4 powers. Chrono Trigger. Square Co., 1995.
    Ghost: The development of Elements, using the energy of the natural world... Chrono Cross. Square Co., 1999.
  15. ^ Richard Honeywood: But the biggest challenge with this project was that the characters' speech patterns had to be auto-generated, real-time by the program. The reason for this was that 40 or so different lines for each character would not fit into memory, so, for a large part of the game, we had to use one piece of common text and change it on the fly into all those funny accents, depending on which character was speaking. You can imagine coming up with different accents is hard enough (especially expressing them in text only). Working out a computer algorithm that can change one piece of text into multiple accents (with limited memory and speed constraints) was just mind-boggling. Interview with Chrono Cross Development Team, GamePro. Retrieved from Chrono Compendium (original page removed) July 1, 2006.
  16. ^ Chrono Cross Script, Chrono Compendium. Ripped by Terminus Traduction. Square Co., 1999.

See also

Official sites

Unofficial sites

Template:Chrono Cross

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