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So, uh, right. I just felt like talking about it, so fire away, I guess.
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http://www.clubsquaresoft.com/graphi...-cross-pre.gif
So, uh, right. I just felt like talking about it, so fire away, I guess.
Well? We're waiting for you to talk about it... ;)
(IMHO - one of least deserving most often slammed games that's among the best RPG's that I've ever played)
well i started playing it last year using epsxe. looks really nice. but for some reason i just stopped. i dont know why. so ummm.....thats all i have to say about it.
Yeah...I guess it's on me, isn't it. I did make the thread after all. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by haohmaru
Hmmm. What kind of "slamming" was it subject to? Most of the people I've heard talk about it were either pleased enough with it to finish it, or just didn't care in the first place, but I've never heard anyone honestly bash it, so I don't know what kinds of arguments are out there. Care to share?Quote:
(IMHO - one of least deserving most often slammed games that's among the best RPG's that I've ever played)
The only problem I had with it was the appearence of Chrono & Co. It seemed kind of...convoluted to me. Not as clear cut as I would have liked. Aside from that I'd agree with you in that's it's one of the best RPGs I've ever played.
It felt totally generic and I struggled to get past the 15-20 hour mark.
So I never did. :/
Generic?
"Oh Reginald...I DISAGREE!!!"
On the contrary, I felt it to be rather original. The battle system was neat, and the story, though a bit hard to follow at times, was well written and executed.
Calling it "generic" is too vague a complaint. Care to expound?
I loved it. People can bitch all they want about there being too many undeveloped characters but I didn't mind them at all. You encountered people and they helped you briefly, but unlike most RPGs you kept access to them to the rest of the game, which brought a nice amount of partry customizing.
It's all about Harle and Lynx, they are so awesome. There was another powerful female that you got late in the game (IIRC) that I loved using. She was really tough and a fist fighter, but it's been so long that I can't remember her name.
And it must be mentioned that the soundtrack to this game is absolutely incredible. I have a playlist of songs that I listen to every night as I go to sleep and everything Chrono Cross that I have (the first disc, I was never able to grab the other three) is in there.
I agree. I was particularly upset when Harle went and did what she did. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by MechDeus
When I bought mine, GameStop (then Babbages) was giving away free soundtrack CDs with this and Legend of Mana (which is another game I love, and the haters can juggle my nuts). I got them both and they're still some of the best music to come out of anywhere, let alone a game.Quote:
And it must be mentioned that the soundtrack to this game is absolutely incredible. I have a playlist of songs that I listen to every night as I go to sleep and everything Chrono Cross that I have (the first disc, I was never able to grab the other three) is in there.
ya know, sometimes i get the feeling that you are my dupe account, i feel the same way about mana. Anyhow, i liked chrono cross, i admit the story did take a while to really get going,and once both "towers" were revealed i was kind of concerned with the direction the story was going, but the way the final battle resolved(i got the good ending) really worked for me. The multitude of characters didnt bother me bcause you seldom were forced to use any one guy. i liked the magic system,particularly the latar summons,and overall felt the battle system worked very well. Solid game that was hurt by being the sequel to a game that is held as nearly perfect. I liked it enough to beat it 2 times and play half way through again before i erased the file to make room for a lesser game''s save. :xx:Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Vegetable
What game?
Yeah, I can see mine from here. There was one other game they were giving stuff away for that summer, as they released three games a couple weeks apart and each had a bonus from preorders. Can't remember what it was, I think it was something I didn't want.Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Vegetable
But I still need to get the full four-disc soundtrack, that thing is sweet as hell. I'm not sure what packaging it comes in, I hope it's more like the FFVIII soundtrack (large beige package with a beautiful insert book) then the FFIX one (simplistic typical CD case).
Threads of Fate was the other game. I didn't want it either, but from what I understand it was pretty neat.
I, also, need to get that 4 disc OST. Let me see if I can't find a picture of the cover. Then you can tell me whether or not you approve. ;)
http://chaos2.org/ff/img/ost/cc-ost.jpg
Nevermind, I guess do own that. :sweat: It was alright gameplay-wise as it nothing special if you take out the art design and writing, but Mint was absolutely hysterical. I remember some cheap level design being in there and I never finished the second path. Maybe one day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Vegetable
Yeah, the OST cover is pretty but I think it's just a regular double CD case. Doesn't really matter too much anyway.
I forget, all i know is that i wound up re-erasing it,and thinking i should have just kept the cc save.
I liked Chrono Cross a lot but I got stuck at about the 10 hour mark. Some day I'll go back to it. I must say that that glam rock character was pretty lame.
I should first note that Chrono Trigger is my favorite game.
With that said, I feel that CC suceeded both as a sequel to my favorite game and as a standalone product. The music is unrivaled, really. Its just so beautiful and haunting.
I started playing it again eariler this summer, and it reinforced just how smart the gameplay is. No leveling up, automatically refilling characters HP, and lack of random battles. Brilliant! More RPGS need to get rid of the shackles of the genres past and make the game bearable to play, or maybe even, dare i say, entertaining.
On a final note to those new to the series, I must say that you should play CT before CC. The key scenes don't mean much to you unless you have played CT first.
I was appalled by the first screens of Chrono Cross too, lost all enthusiasm for it. When my friends got it and beat it I still never had any interest. I never got around to playing it till I got my PS2 and went on a PS1 RPG frenzy. After finally finishing Xenogears, I put some time into Chrono Cross. "It wasn't bad but it wasn't that good either", my opinion of the 10 or so hours I played.
... A year later I download the soundtrack and after a few listenings I get the urge to play again. A couple weeks ago, I went to Toys R Us and pick up Chrono Cross along with FF9 (first FF purchase in 5 years). Chrono just began to get interesting and that's all I have to ramble about as of now.
Chrono Trigger still ranks among my favorite games. That said, I had *huge* expectations for Chrono Cross, but didn't like a lot of what they did with it, mostly in the story/characters department.
Gameplay I felt was indeed refreshing and quite fun, lots of neat ideas present. Graphically it's easily one of the best looking games for it's system, so no gripes there. Character design however, I didn't like. Even though it's by the same artist who did the designs for Escaflowne (which I thought had some cool ones), I don't think what they produced for CC was that great.
Related to characters, here's probably my biggest gripe with the game. Having so many characters at your disposal meant most all of them only got developed somewhat... you could never really grow to love any of the characters quite like you could the main cast of Chrono Trigger. And this is just a personal gripe, but I wish there were more connections to the first game.
And yea, like it's been said a thousand times, the music is just top notch. I love all of what Yasunori Mitsuda does, and a lot of the tracks produced for this game rank high on the Mitsuda "best of" list (IMO).
And yea, Threads of Fate... fun game. Very easy, but it had a great atmosphere and also great music (I forget the composer's name though). If you like action-RPGs, it's certainly an enjoyable diversion.
Chrono Cross, Dew Prism, and Legend of Mana all came out within a few months and were part of Square's "Summer of Adventure" promotion if I recall. They all came with soundtracks if you preordered them. CC is the only one I bought right away so that's the only promo-CD I got.
I never bothered listening to the single (I still have it somewhere) because it wasn't long after I finished the game that I bought the full soundtrack for like $40. This is significant because I *never* buy videogame soundtracks (in fact, this might be my only one). Great stuff on there as several people have mentioned. The game itself though...
Well, I liked it. And I loved Kid. And a couple other of the ancillary characters were interesting. But overall I can't see all the fuss. I played CT when it came out (i.e. a loooooong time ago) so I was *real* hazy on what happened in that game by the time I started CC. Basically all the cool tie-ins were lost on me 'cause I couldn't remember what happened in CT. I also was kinda burned out on RPGs when I played it so I don't know, maybe it was brilliant and I just played it at the wrong time.
Now, Legend of Mana on the other hand.... lol, this game crashed and burned in so many ways except for one: the art style (er, two, the overhead map music was nice). What the hell was with the instrument-making? And using them to lure those little spirits or whatever. And what was the significance of the moon phases and stuff when placing artifacts. I don't know, it all seemed overly complex with too little instruction. And the battles were a boring joke. Oh, I really tried to like this game mostly due to the art and nice map music (I'm a sucker for pretty tunes). I restarted it twice and got pretty far the second time. Ultimately though it just felt hollow and way too homework-like to continue.
p.s. I loved the cactus guy who'd jump up after you left your room and write little blurbs about your latest finished chapter. He wrote some very cute things in there.
Dew Prism (Threads of Fate is a gay name), I have and will play someday soon. I'm looking forward to Mint and her sassy ways.
count me in as another who started the game but stopped playing for some reason. its not that i hate it, because after i put some time in, everything i didn't like i easily forgot about. i think it just wasn't my time to play it yet. thanks to my dexdrive, i still have my save, so i think someday when i finally get around to finishing xenogears, i'll get back to it.
[derail]Legend of Mana suffered from a bad case of Not Enough Information. If the crafting system had been even half as well explained in game or in the manual (hah!) as it was on Gamefaqs, it would have been a lot more enjoyable for a lot of people. That and they definitely could have ramped up the difficulty. I wish they had just left the difficulty select as a regular option, rather than forcing you to finish the game first.[/derail]
I really dug Chrono Chross. There were definitely a few cardboard cutouts for characters, but it didn't really matter since there were plenty of characters I liked. The CT tie-in was kind of out there, but it didn't really matter to me, since I thought the whole ending area was really cool.
One of my favorite characters was the blonde haired girl who had the twin sister. I can't remember her name, but she packed quite a punch in battle.
EDIT: Orlha? I think that was her name.
It isn't without it's problems, but as you say, if people took the time to actually get into it, or to seek an explanation, they'd have had a much better time with it. As it was, they wanted everything explained to them (with good reason), and lost out on a charming, fun, well played RPG.Quote:
Originally Posted by Masaka
The combat was a bit easy. I equiped my protag with a staff and following that, every battle was a joke. Even bosses fell before the might of my pointy-stick whielding action! Some of the larger bosses couldn't even get an attack in edgewise!
I still love the game, though. It's a shame it never got the love and attention it deserved.
___________________________________________
I don't get what the problem with the under-developed characters in Chrono Cross is all about. The characters who the story focused mainly on (Serge, Kid, Lynx, Harle, etc.) were all fleshed out beautifully, and their design was some of the most colorful I've ever seen. Colorful is good. Very good, considering we live in the era of the dark, drab anti-hero. In fact, the singular problem I had with the design was the Masamune. It should have been a sword. I do like how Masa and Mune make a re-appearence, of sorts, but they should have been a sword.
Good game.
I love the game. One of the few RPGs that I've really gotten sucked into. The music is phenomenal.
Get the OST, by far one of my favorite soundtracks :)
That's the one thing I never thought I'd hear, generic is Beyond the Beyond... not Chrono Cross ;) :)Quote:
It felt totally generic
Now why is "Threads of Fate" a gay name, I know it's must be because of your Japanese over anything translated to USA attitude... come on admit it ;) :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Compass
I agree I don't much care for name changes if they can be avoided, but I think the name "Threads of Fate" fits it well considering they were controller like puppets, "Dew Prism" is also good title though :)
Oh and Johnny Wolf is so cute :D
I haven't played it since release, so my memory is a bit foggy...
But everything about it just felt like the generic, japenese console rpg. The setting, battle system, characters, story...it all just felt totally rehashed.
That was a great summer for Square too. I loved Legend of Mana, and Thread of Fate was good too, cept the control was kinda off which made it frusterating at points.
i liked the game a lot but in the end I think the story was much weaker than Crono Trigger and it was too confusing.I want to go back--haven't played through New Game+.
I loved it. I was actually thinking of playing through it again recently, but I don't have the time right now.
I think I have a save about half way through where I was meticulously gathering up every spell using capture that I could. Pretty sure I lost steam once you become furry. It picks up again after that though, so I may just play that game. Plus I had picked up cool characters that game.
I think CC required certain things to be enjoyed. One was expectations that weren't set somewhere around Pluto due to CT, another was an appreciation for, ah, slightly quirky characters.
Yes it was, Vagrant Story was my favorite title they released that year, just before the summer I believe :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Kidnemo
I liked Threads of Fate a lot, it was much better then I thought it would be :)
I would kill a number of people between 12 and 25 for a chance to play Vagrant Story 2.
ToF was decent, but I made the dreadful mistake of NOT playing Evil Princess Mint. Generic Moody Good Guy was very boring.
Starland was so freakish in that game, I'm pretty sure it caused permanent mental damage.
Without reading anything else posted, I'm just going to ramble on about Chrono Cross.
1. The cast of characters was over extensive, and caused there to be a lack of feel for most characters. I just didn't seem to end up caring for most the characters like in some games.
2. I really enjoyed the story, just the way it all tied together in the end was really good, it just did a wonderful job of keeping everything a mystery.
3. The battle system was... well it wasn't great but it was good, though I never did find out how to use Double/Triple Techs.
4. Serge didn't talk. Crono didn't talk. I hate that.
5. Soundtrack was just overall kick ass.
6. It was a really good game, I only got two endings though, too lazy to get anymore. I just can't find myself playing through it several times like I would Chrono Trigger.
I remember the day I got it. I brought my ps1 to work (I was working at an AV department, so tv's werent a problem) Took a 15 minute break, drove like a madman to EB, grabbed it with the soundtrack, and made it back to work in the allotted time, with some McDonalds. Anyway, I ended up playing it 6 of my 8 hours that shift :)
Awesome game.
Haha that sounds like a pretty cool job there Chux.
I've said plenty about CC on this forum and others, so I'll skip the preliminaries and say that CC is the second greatest console RPG I've played after Valkyrie Profile, and anyone who doesn't like it has poor taste.
Yea, my taste rocks.
YES! That's the girl I was talking about! Not sure if that's spelled right, but it's definately the right name.Quote:
Originally Posted by Masaka
I was a fan of Grobyc especially since he had a cool combo attack with norris.
http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/p...es/grobycf.gif
Threads of Fate was a cool game. I think its the best looking 3D game on the PSone. Nice music too. I need to get that game again.
Vagrant Story looks better imho.
VS with texture smooth on the PS2 is pretty damn amazing
How dare you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Werewolf
Threads of Fate is a gay name mostly because Dew Prism was such a cool one. That there's an entire job whose sole duty is to mangle titles, names, cover-art, etc. to make them more palatable for Americans bothers me. I somewhat understand the need *at times* but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
Changing the ultra-cool Dew Prism title to the generic and forgettable Threads of Fate was neither needed nor welcome. My guess is that the people with these jobs are worried they'll be fired if they *don't* change stuff.
:wtf:
Opposite opinion here, I think texture smoothing makes it look a lot worse. Trying to remember how it looks through ePSXe, I want to say it looks a lot better but I think something ended up not looking right. Oh well, whatever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Victrix
Chrono Cross is one of the better RPGs I have ever played.
I honestly can not fathom why some of you don't like this game.
I was excited when I first heard of CC, but the more I heard about it the less I cared (no returning people from CT, idiotic amount of characters, shitty character design). I bought it anyway, played through it once and traded it in
it was better than I thought it would be but I still didn't like it that much
I picked it up on clearance a little while back, I played it once and liked it, but it was not my time to play it yet, so it went into my pile of shame...
Now that I've finally finished Xenogears (60 hours..ouch) I'll probably play Chrono Cross the next time I get bitten by the RPG bug. I have Final Fantasy 9 unbeaten though, but I didn't care too much for it so I'll probably go with Chrono Cross first.
uh?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xero_Kaiser
He probably means that the cast of Chrono Trigger didn't return in a playable capacity, and it bummed him out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Victrix
shrug, didn't bug me at all, just preference I guess
Most people expect direct sequels (although coming from the company that makes FF and SaGa I do find it funny expectations for that are still there) and CC not being one turned off a lot of people. Personally, I think CC was probably better then a direct sequel would've turned out, tying up the final remaining thread from CT and touching on everything that happened before but with a brand new everything else. It was clever, different, and damned interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Victrix
Um, I think you've got it the wrong way around, my friend. "Dew Prism"? Number one, that name makes absolutely no sense. Number two, it sounds like a sex toy for people who have teh gay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Compass
Threads of Fate was a cool name and the game was good.
Chrono Cross was a phenomenal game. Hands down, the best console RPG I've ever played. I only like two games more than Chrono Cross and they're both PC games - Heroes of Might & Magic 3 and Morrowind.
I can still play through CC over and over again and I can also sit there and watch someone else play.
I just got to thinking, seeing as how Chrono Trigger was a collaboration from Square and some key people from Enix, plus Toriyama who seems to do most of his work for Enix, wouldn't it be great if Chrono Break (or whatever the next game will be) had a bunch of the Enix guys help out the CC team? I think that'd be a pretty nice outcome from the Square Enix merger.
I'm also thinking how a lot of the CT team now works at Monolith Soft, so maybe my babbling is pretty far off. Oh well.
The moral of the story is that I want Chrono Break or Chrono Something to get shown off soon. Thanks.
"no returning characters from Chrono Trigger", or "the game wasn't enough like Chrono Trigger" is often the dumbest reason people cite for not liking Chrono Cross.
The entire fucking game plays like a love letter to CT. Every single aspect of it is somehow inspired by the game, from the music to the graphics to the story to the characters. Not only are almost all of the major CT protagonists present in some form in CC (as plot devices if never actually playable), but many of the CC playable characters are subtle tributes to CT, such as:
-Pierre, the French swordsman (he's a "Frog", get it?), who ironically is a complete coward
-Luccia, scientist and dead ringer for Lucca
-Glenn, another swordsman and Frog reference
-Serge, obviously a tribute to Crono
-Guile, another obvious one (Magus)
...plus a ton of other original characters and subtle references to CT.
Ultimately, the people who really appreciate CC are the ones who prefer subtlety and creativity over cookie-cutter, fan-service sequels. Sure, Square could have hired Toriyama again to draw up new characters and made "Chrono Trigger II", and that would have satisfied the fanboys, but it wouldn't have broken as much new ground. Instead they created a wildly original plot filled with beautiful CT tributes -- the Enertron in the Dead Sea, Glenn's story, the brief snippets of the main CT theme inserted into the Home World theme, and the moment you realize why the game plays Lucca's theme during the end-of-battle screen.
CC is at least as good as CT (I personally think it's better), and I don't understand why more people (CT fans especially) don't see this.
You obviously didn't play the game all that much. The Dew Prism was a very powerful relic that both Mint and Rue along with the villians were all searching for. So Dew Prism was a very appropriate name (and while I don't mind Threads of Fate anymore, I think Dew Prism was a better title. Neither one of them is "gay".)Quote:
Originally Posted by Calliander
The Crono Cross OST is three discs, afaik, (in a four disc case). Includes a booklet with liner notes, interview with noriko mitose and has commentary from the people that made the soundtrack.Quote:
Originally Posted by MechDeus
I think it's among the best soundtracks that I've ever heard, FFT included.
I don't think this could have been put more succinctly. I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by sleeveboy
It was a great game, I think if it hadn't been the sequel to Chrono Trigger my initial experience would have been better. Once I looked at it independantly of CT the only real problem I had with it was the staggeringly low amount of character individuality that was instituted in order to cram a previously unheard of mass of playable characters into the game. It was absolutly gorgeous though, one of the best looking games I've ever played.
suikoden series. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shakey
I pretty much agree with all of this, perhaps with less emphasis on the character criticism. Kid and Harle, however, were two of the most interesting characters I've ever seen in a game, and the world was chock full of back-handed references to the original.Quote:
Originally Posted by NoFace
What was everyone expecting? "Chrono and Marle had to save the planet from Lavos...again!"The Masamune was a sword. It was the cursed sword by which Radius killed Darai and with which Dario attacked Karsh. Only after Doreen (Masa and Mune's older sister) merges with the blade does it become the Mastermune, the dual bladed ultimate weapon for Serge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Vegetable
In Radical Dreamers, Guile was named Gil, and he was later revealed to be Magil, which is the Japanese name for Magus I believe. The connection was scrapped for Cross because of the difficulty in constructing a relationship between Kid and Guile, who would essentially be siblings in some very convoluted way. However, Lucca's letter to Kid mentions something like "say hi to Janus for me" which seems like a reference to Guile.Quote:
Originally Posted by sleeveboy
I didn't really pick up on that Guile/Magus bit until this time through. You see, I never chose Guile as my guide to Viper Manor. Go friggin' figure. He is a dead ringer, though. I'm sure that's why he's got the mask. Not to add any measure of mistique, but to get speculating.