IGN's Top 25 Game Franchises

[sethsez]

Well, Chrono Cross covered its ass with retconning by creating the Tesseract, but that was already kind of lame, and in its attempt to clarify what was going on the game wound up being really muddled. I can only imagine what would happen if they tried to set a third game on the same planet... most of the plot would just be trying to justify how it could exist. Hell, I'd argue that was what happened in Cross as well.

Now that I think about it, though, another game could work on a totally different planet if enough Chrono elements are kept. It would certainly clear up a lot of the bullshit Cross introduced.

[SpoDaddy]

I haven't played a lot of either Chrono game. That said, I have a hard time believing Square covered every location on earth across every possible time period in two RPG's.

As for the list, Halo should replace Chrono Trigger/Cross.

Smash Brothers should be on the list considering it's done a great deal to sell 3 different generations of console and has outsold many of the franchises already on the list. It should replace Donkey Kong.

[sethsez]

I haven't played a lot of either Chrono game.

oh okay then

[mollipen]

Halflife and Warcraft should be 1 and 2. How you would order those two as number 1 and 2 is highly subjective. May I recommend we cease talking about IGN's Nintendo jerk off list and create our own lists.

I don't even really like Mario, yet there is NO way I'd put it under those two. I mean... you're just talking crazy talk here. The Mario series has sold far more copies, been a far bigger part of, and more influenced the gaming industry than either of those choices.

For those saying Halo doesn't belong because it was only two games, IGN listed the criteria of 'future installments' for how things were voted. Chrono is not going to continue in all great likelihood, while Halo already has 2 confirmed installments coming out. It should knock Chrono off the list.

Chrono should NEVER have been on that list.

[SpoDaddy]

oh okay then

You're saying Square has performed a storytelling feat that nobody else ever has?

[Yoshi]

Did I just read "Square" and "story" in the same sentence? The word "Tactics" must have been there too, despite the fact that I didn't see it.

[sethsez]

You're saying Square has performed a storytelling feat that nobody else ever has?

I'm saying that although it doesn't cover every possible point in time and every possible location on the planet, it covers vast expanses of both and implies that what we don't see isn't particularly important. Much like how you know the worlds in most JRPGs don't really just have 15 towns, but the rest are omitted because they don't matter.

The point here is that between two games that together cover pretty much all of history, including alternate dimensions, on a single planet, there aren't many places for some great evil to hide without it having sprung up somehow in the other games. This is much easier in other RPGs because you can just have another Great Big Thing attack, but if you do that in the Chrono series you have to explain why neither Chrono nor Serge ever manged to hear about it in some respect. It's just a fundamental problem of covering such a vast expanse, and one Chrono Cross already suffered from a bit (many argue that the plot was needlessly convoluted, and most of that was due to trying to fit everything together without contradicting itself).

Could they fit some great evil villain on that planet and explain it away? Sure, but I imagine that the logical contortions that would lead to it would make for a story that would be too convoluted to be entertaining, which is why I think it'd be best to either leave the series alone, or restart it on another planet with its own history.

Did I just read "Square" and "story" in the same sentence? The word "Tactics" must have been there too, despite the fact that I didn't see it.

Well I can't think of any other reason people want another Chrono game, because the story is the only thing linking them together.

[Changeling]

No Halo? The franchise which is solely responsible for the success of the Xbox?

LMFAO

It wasn't the reason I bought an Xbox. Halo did well because it was on console. If it was on PC, it would have been shuffeled to the side in 6 months.

Wait, haven't we had discussions like this before?

[Compass]

It wasn't the reason I bought an Xbox. Halo did well because it was on console. If it was on PC, it would have been shuffeled to the side in 6 months.

It was and was.

[sethsez]

If Halo were made specifically for PC it would have had infinitely better level design because it wouldn't have had a system launch deadline. The actual mechanics of the game are fantastic and were even pretty unique for PC FPS of the time.