THE GOOD:story is decent,non-linear gameplay like no rpg of the same age,excellent graphics,very quick loading times,great replay value,very impressive soundtrack,beautiful and perfectly created game's world,
THE BAD:
easy battles' difficulty(for good gamers),lots of characters without personality development
SUMMARY:
STORY very decent,I'd say the best except unbeatable legendary Xenogears.
original and interesting central character of the game-Kid.Chrono Cross's story is in fact HER story,the real sense of this game is this character.
very impressive and unexpected storyline's turning points.
in fact this game 's story is as amazing and exciting as Chrono Trigger's(it's "prequel") plus new amazing and subtle own sense ,plus more mature and complicated.
GAMEPLAY very very decent in terms of exploring the world,talking to various people and etc.in fact in THIS terms this game really can be called the best.lots of things to find and to see,lots of different scenes,dialogues,side quests.
one of the best and outstanding aspect of Chrono Cross is it's non-lineaity.unlike other rpgs the same age or earlier,this game has amazing freedom to explore almost full world map at any time,besides,there are several "choice-points":not only player can choose various "roads",but also he gets different party members on every "road".
really remarkable aspect,actually no rpg of the same age had this on the same level.
battle system has several very interesting ideas and is very nice and clever.however,it doesn't play as much role in this game as in other rpgs,like Final Fantasy.battles' difficulty is very easy,bosses have very small amount of Hit Pounts,besides there is no ordinal leveling up in Chrono Cross.whole party gets
a "star"-an increase of statistics only after boss battles.so in battle part this game is either good for rpg newbies or "dissapontment" for diehards.don't get me wrong though-it is not bad or dull-simply made for newbies.
one of the nicest things in this game is that all monsters are on screen(same as in Chrono Trigger or Lunar),so there is no "swirling screen" random battles.
speaking of the game's difficulty,I would admit that the true,real ending of this game is very hard to achieve without a walkthrough.
in general:gameplay is concentrated on storyline,exploring and dialogues,with easy battles,which are in very small amount compared to other rpgs.
Sountrack is amazing,the composer is the same as in Chrono trigger,Xenogears-Y.Mitsuda.very subtle and nice music,can be called one of the best of all games(not only rpgs),if not the best,indeed.it uses a great amount of various native instruments,including Japanese flutes and a "music box" like in Xenogears.
some tunes are borrowed from Chrono trigger,but rearranged.very good indeed,Square even released a cd with CC soundtrack.
Graphics..to say that they are great is like to say nothing,they are amazing for PS1,especially battle graphics.by the way,the programmers of this game did a really great job,because loading times are very quick,especially battles' loading-they are literally instant(unlike Final fantasy games).
well,the only REAL negative that this game really has is very weak characters' personalities development.CC has over 40 characters,and sadly many of them simply have no personality at all..even keeping in mind the true sense of this game-central character,Kid(the game is actually about her),this is still a negative.actually the only real one.
Conclusion:I would indeed recommend you this game,actually in any case.simply because you will have impressions that NO other rpg is able to give you.
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