Chrono Cross (г‚Їгѓ­гѓЋгѓ»г‚Їгѓ­г‚№пј‰ is a PlayStation RPG created by Square Co., Ltd. (now Square Enix) with a story that builds upon Chrono Trigger. However, Chrono Trigger team members Hironobu Sakaguchi (Supervisor), Yuji Horii (Supervisor, Initial Scenario Writer), and Akira Toriyama (Character Design) were notably not a part of the Chrono Cross development team. Indeed, few of the original staff participated on the game as they had been reassigned to different teams over the years.

Chrono Trigger had a "sequel" released in Japan called Radical Dreamers for the Satellaview add-on for the Super Famicom, but it was a text adventure. When Chrono Cross was being designed, part of the Radical Dreamers' plot and characters were used. However, Chrono Cross cannot be viewed as a mere remake of Radical Dreamers as they have a lot of differences and incompatibilities. Chrono Cross sold to expectations in the United States, but disappointing Japanese sales lead some to speculate that the Chrono series has been halted.

Chrono Cross was released in United States in 2000 and features music composed by Yasunori Mitsuda. The game was hailed by professional reviewers, but some Chrono Trigger fans denounced it as an inferior sequel. In some cases, this is a result of these players wanting to control the old cast of Chrono Cross's predecessor and play a more direct sequel.

The game has 45 possible party members to acquire, all of whom come with several abilities of their own, with some combining into Double and Triple Techs.

Because of the incredibly vast number of possible party combinations, this 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, this game uses the same text and modifies it based on the character using it. An example of its coding in the script:

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

Plot

The story of Chrono Cross revolves around the character Serge, who, as a small child, is supposed to drown, but is saved by a powerful force. The resulting shift in the world's history creates two distinct parallel dimensions. In one dimension, he survives and lives for 10 years before the game begins. In the alternate dimension, he drowns in a beach near his home.

The plot itself revolves around Serge's unknowing efforts to free Schala from the Time Devourer, a fusion of Lavos, the ultimate enemy with the capacity to destroy the planet from Chrono Trigger, and Schala, a princess of Zeal and sister of Magus who has immense magical power and disappeared to the Darkness Beyond Time accidentally due to Crono's influence in history. Years in the future, Belthasar, a former guru of Zeal, discovered that the Time Devourer had formed and planned to consume all spacetime; he thus set in motion an almost ludicrously complex chain of events meant to give rise to and guide Serge to venture to 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. While the plot is sound, its delivery is criticized and many players resort to a guide to understand its intricacies [1]

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. This can be found by reading one of the computer consoles in Chronopolis, a city which was pulled back in time due to a failed experiment. Chronopolis now monitors the El Nido Archipelago, in an attempt to prevent a paradox from occurring which would prevent its existence in the future. The most notable difference is that Magus is absent from the game. While confirmed to be Magil in Radical Dreamers by both the game and its creator, 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 be in the game, but scrapped the idea due to difficulties representing his story amongst forty-three other characters.

A small number of fans voiced displeasures at the dissimilarities between Chrono Cross and its predecessor, citing a new cast and a different battle system as cause to debase the game as a sequel to Trigger. Masato Kato, series creator, also said in an interview that he did not consider the game as such when working on it. However, the game is sold and billed as a sequel, and fulfills all the qualities of such a label; it takes place in the same world (although on an island), sufficiently continues and builds upon the storyline of the previous game, wraps up several loose ends from the game (without sacrificing plot integrity; these naysayers sometimes accuse the game of plot holes that were nonexistent), and contains the same thematic elements and overtones (changing history and the power of free will).

Square applied for a trademark the name Chrono Break in 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. 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.

Chrono Cross was never released in Europe, with Square citing a combination of economic and technical expenses involved in converting the game for release in PAL territories.

Characters

There are 44 characters normally (Lynx unlockable through an odd twist in the gameplay), with six Elements for each of them. While the presence of six elements is a departure from Chrono Trigger's limit at four, the game does provide ample 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 more so the use of manufactured tools to effect changes in nature.

White Innate Characters

White is a more mystical element than others. One of the characters with a White element is a religious person. White characters are great healers, because of them being the only ones able to use HolyHealing. It loosely ties in with "Lightning" from Chrono Trigger.

• Serge (Swallow) (Male)
• Doc (Shot) (Male)
• Pip (Glove) (Male)
• Starky (Gun) (Male)
• Riddel (Staff) (Female)
• Steena (Sword) (Female)

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.

• Lynx (Swallow) (Male)
• Guile (Rod) (Male)
• Harle (Shot) (Female)
• Luccia (Shot) (Female)
• Mojo (Glove) (Male)
• Skelly (Glove) (Male)
• Grobyc (Glove) (Male)

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".

• Kid (Dagger) (Female)
• Greco (Glove) (Male)
• Draggy (Glove) (Male)
• Miki (Glove) (Female)
• Orcha (Utensils) (Male)
• Macha (Utensils) (Female)
• Zappa (Axe/Hammer) (Male)
• Janice (Carrot) (Female)

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.

• Orlha (Glove) (Female)
• Marcy (Glove) (Female)
• Fargo (Sword) (Male)
• Pierre (Sword) (Male)
• Nikki (Pick) (Male)
• Irenes (Pick) (Female)
• Leena (Utensils) (Female)
• Korcha (Lure) (Male)

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.

• Glenn (Sword) (Male)
• Turnip (Sword) (Male)
• Sprigg (Staff) (Female)
• Radius (Staff) (Male)
• NeoFio (Glove) (Female)
• Razzly (Rod) (Female)
• Karsh (Axe) (Male)
• Van (Boomerang) (Male)

Yellow Innate Characters

Great offensive fighters. Some of the most powerful characters, especially Leah. Yellow does not roughly correspond with any element in Chrono Trigger, since Lightning is an invention of its localization team (the original element being Heaven or Light).

• Zoah (Glove) (Male)
• Poshul (Glove) (Male)
• Leah (Axe) (Female)
• Funguy (Axe) (Male)
• Norris (Gun) (Male)
• Sneff (Shot) (Male)
• General Viper (Sword) (Male)
• Mel (Boomerang) (Female)

Returning Characters

Six characters from Chrono Trigger return in the sequel. These characters, however, are not playable and only make brief appearences, 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.

• 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 two different occasions; once in the Dead Sea, and again 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 actually the Dragons, but Lavos himself, and the real Dragons were long dead. In his true Lavos form, he had Schala attached to him, indicating that he is the fragment of Lavos that was used in the Mammon Machine.

Music

A double-CD was released.

Awards

This is a list of various awards that the game got.

• Electronic Gaming Monthly - Gold Award

Also, Gamespot has reviewed over 1100+ games and has only give 4 of them a perfect 10/10. Chrono Cross was one of them.

• Gamespot considers Chrono Cross to be perfect in every manner.

Packaging artwork

Chrono Cross Sony PlayStation Japan, 1999

Chrono Cross Sony PlayStation North America, 2000

Chrono Cross: Square Millennium Collection Sony PlayStation Japan, 2000

See also

• Chrono Cross Timeline

External links

• French Translation by Terminus
• Timelines at the Chrono Compendium Encyclopediafr:Chrono Cross

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