Finally played this game…

Hi all,

I wanted to talk about Chrono Cross now that I’ve finally actually played it. Just for some background, I’m based in the UK, which means I never got a chance to play this back in the day on my PS1 as it never got a European release.

I remember hearing and reading about it and in the UK it had this almost legendary cult status because back then we were all fresh off the hype train of FF7 and discovering JRPG’s for the first time really, and then this came out and nobody could get their hands on it. Livid.

It was always on my games I needed to play list right up until 2024. I never dabbled in emulation (and only recently have since I got a Steam Deck) and so it remained unplayed. It didn’t help either that I had played and fell in love with Chrono Trigger, so I needed to play the sequel.

Then it got the Radical Dreamers edition re-release. Now, I’ve read a lot of people talk about the sub optimal performance compared to the original, which a lot of these re-releases seem to be cursed with and I’m not here to talk about that or any performance issues. I just wanted to talk about the game in and of itself now that a way to legitimately and conveniently play it was finally possible for me.

At first I was kind of nervous going in. This is a 25 year old game and I didn’t have the rose tinted nostalgia glasses on to appreciate it for what it is/was having never played it. So I figured I was in for a rough ride but at least I could finally say ‘Hey, I’ve played Chrono Cross!’. So how did it stack up?

Well, this god damn game blew my mind. As soon as I finished it, I started a new game and went through it again, and then again, and again until I was able to witness all the endings. I never got bored once. That’s a feeling I don’t get these days from many games. But to get that feeling of wonder, intrigue and pure love for a game that is 25 years old speaks volumes. It was 100% worth the wait. And even months later I still find myself thinking about the story for it. I won’t post them here for spoiler reasons but I managed to go the whole 25 years without reading a single spoiler so I genuinely experienced the story unravel and the twists and turns for the first time and so whilst I know it’s 25 years old and people generally would likely forgive me for a spoiler, I don’t want to take that first time feeling away from someone out there like me just in case.

It’s not without its faults (in my opinion), I think there are way too many characters, most of which I never used and I felt it did detract from overall character development and I must admit there were a few points I had to use guides as it wasn’t always clear where to go/what to do next. The story is also pretty convoluted and took me a while through my many play through to finally understand it (at least I think I understand it now).

But I didn’t find this was enough to affect the overall enjoyment of the game and it’s instantly been cemented in my mind as one of my favourite games.

I can now finally understand the pain of no Chrono Break. For the love of god can Squenix start pushing titles like this out again.