Don't you just love it when Life sneaks up on you and everything changes? Your norms are now your no-mores, your routines are regularly uprooted, and you just can't see when things will next go back to the way they were. What if we could cope by just getting sucked into a parallel dimension that inevitably leads to a grand adventure that requires us to save the world?
Actually, that'd exacerbate the problem. Let's not do that. Let's instead, finally, get around to playing age-old games I've never come across before and see what all the fuss is about, with not-a-sequel to the SNES RPG Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, kicking things back into gear.
Fun Times
After a CGI intro that reminds me of Silhouette Mirage's intro (in a 'what the hell did I just watch?' kind of fashion), we are straight into the world of... I've absolutely no idea what that world is.
Again, I'm reminded of other games here, and this time Final Fantasy VII pops into my head as the party is already in the midst of a mission of some sort. It's nice to start with a bit of action though, and we can work out what's going on with an inevitable plot dump further down the line.
Frustrations
After we've found the run button, and the emulator stops audio skipping. To be fair to not-a-sequel Chrono Cross, emulation woes aren't deal-breaking, like they may be in other games or on other systems. And to be fairer still, the run button is only on the Circle button. We are, officially, up and running.
Further Fun Times
Not only are we up and running, but we're running in such a way that we can, if we want to, completely avoid encounters with what I can only assume are enemies. We're not going to, of course, but I read that encounters, in general, are not required in order to level-up your character. You'll get some benefits, but only in certain circumstances, which drastically reduces the grind that is all-too-common and off-putting in RPGs.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's fight.
There are many things going on in these battle screens. Obviously, characters have their own stats and attacks, but the way not-a-sequel Chrono Cross goes about combat is unlike anything else you've come across in gaming before - and arguably not for the better.
Further Frustrations
I've skipped over a fair bit here until I got into a tutorial in town by an old guy called something or other, in order to try and explain the combat.
You have three different strengths of melee attacks, weak, medium and strong, each with their own hit percentages and damage and the like. The heavier an attack is, the harder it is to land and the more stamina is used, however, if you manage to successfully land attacks in a row, the hit percentage of each attack rises and rises until you can more reliably land those heavier hits. A weak attack is likely to land, and landing it means the medium attack is more likely to land, and if it does, now the heavier attack is much more likely to land itself, and before you know it you're out of stamina for the round and will have to wait your turn.
While that's going on, successful attacks unlock progressive levels of elemental magic which you can use to harm your opponents or heal yourself, for example. The higher the level, the better the spell, generally speaking, and you can fully customise and tinker with your elements so that you're an all-rounder, or a dedicated healer or whatever floats your boat - provided you find spells, equip them and are aware that each elemental effect can only be used once per fight.
Want to heal? You could have a few healing spells or a few party members with healing spells, or you could understand yet another combat system, the Field Effect.
Something to do with attacks is found in the top left of the screen. I think it relates to the last three elements used in the fight. If they're all blue, for example, blue spells will be more effective, and the opposite colours' spells won't be. There are six elements/colours to keep an eye out for, and so you need to keep the notion of which colours to use and when to use them in your head at all times - especially because you unlock better spells by successfully hitting an opponent, and you successfully hit an opponent by stacking hit percentages in the right way...
There's so much going on that at one point, this Radius chap said this, and I literally couldn't tell you what he was on about:
I still don't know where I am, or even who I am. Some of the kids in this village clearly think I'm the kind of guy who acts like an older brother, but anyone who dares call me Franky isn't going to get far in this life. If I typed 'Frank' into the name field, I expect to be called 'Frank'. The one exception being South Park: The Stick of Truth, come to think of it.
Anyway, I am apparently looking for Leena, with whom I apparently have a special relationship with. I've no idea but I eventually find her on the pier watching over kids, annoyed that I slept in and didn't help her. Boring bit of backstory later and I've got my first quest.
Further Fun Times
I can't lie, this game looks pretty good, doesn't it? Alright, the details don't hold up, and I'm not a massive fan on the art style, but it is stylish, it is colourful, and I can't recall any RPG quite packing this much visual punch, or in this way at least.
Heading down to the rock pools on the coast, I set about finding these lizard scales. I spy a creature eyeing up a treasure chest, so I think I'll introduce myself to this, uhm...
... Beach Bum. Yeeeaaah.
No scales, but a Fireball spell should come in handy. Used spells aren't lost, like ammo or anything, but having more of them means you can use them multiple times in a fight. Save for messing around in the opening area though, I haven't found the need to use them. Maybe I'm missing the point.
Combat does feel a little funny, with a lot of stopping and starting. It's turn based, kind of, in that one character will line up a load of hits until their stamina depletes, but those hits will take place as soon as you select them. If you uhm and ahh over which strength attack to do after your opening weak hit, you'll notice your character has already smacked the foe (or not) and is idling until you elect to slap them again. Maybe it's to allow you to register misses more easily, and change up the attack to make sure your spells are unlocked... You know those moments of revelation you have waaay after the fact? I think that just happened.
There are a few of these lizards roaming about the map, and you'll only fight them by running into them - and these arseholes run away from you. You can move rocks to block their path or cut corners in order to catch up to them, but the last one (I assume because it was the third one) was pulling a bloody roadrunner on me, and just refused to be caught. Clearly the survival instincts AI was well coded here.
My last memory of not-a-sequel Chrono Cross is, therefore, one of "Goddamn if I have to move off this screen one more time, hearing the emulation screech and skip and fail to play the audio, I will save state and give up."
Which I did.
Final Word
I read the 1001 entry after playing to learn that it is in this very area of the game that I get sucked into a parallel universe in order to kick events off big-time, but as far as I could see, I was failing to run into a bloody lizard in order to get bloody scales for a bloody woman - scales that I found in town, not a stones throw from the bloody woman herself:
I've also read that the game features something like 45 party members, and an entire accent system for the dialogue, so that yokels can sound like yokels and foreigners like foreigners, I imagine. It changes 'this' into 'zis', kinda thing, and worked wonders for the localisation efforts.
On paper, the game sounds great. Ambitious, perhaps overly so, and definitely confusing in places, but it sounds like a good time. But playing it... eh, it just didn't quite work for me. Clearly the same old story of 'I haven't played anywhere near enough to know for sure' can be repeated here, as can an admission of not knowing how to get the best out of the systems the game is built on in order to have an effective time, especially in combat, but that's not the whole story.
There are bits and pieces in here that make me want to play some more. There are two old folks talking in town that are talking about why foreigners would want to dig up a place that is literally called 'Fossil Valley', and another guy who knows that you're just telling him what he wants to hear and thanks you for trying anyway. The writing stands out. I've no idea what it all means, but it stands out.
But it has the same problems I face with any grand RPG. Even if combat is 'optional', getting to know the ins and outs of the system is still essential. I suppose you could grind out a victory by only slashing your opponent in the face with your sword, but it's clearly not what was intended, and would be an utter grind, which happens to be the opposite of the intent.
It's a funny one. It needs more time from me, that much is certain, but I don't see myself getting into it beyond that, though the visuals may entice me in. I just don't know. All we can be sure of is that Chrono Cross is not a sequel to Chrono Trigger, which is fine by me.
Fun Facts
This is perhaps one of the first games to actually have someone think about taking Japanese jokes and making them work in English, be it through their rewriting into something more recognisable by Western audiences, or their removal entirely.
Chrono Cross, developed by Square Product Development Division 3, first released in 1999.
Version played: PlayStation, 2000, via emulation.