21st Century Digital Boy

But, for a certainty, back then,

We loved so many, yet hated so much,

We hurt others and were hurt ourselves…

Yet even then, we ran like the wind,

Whilst our laughter echoed,

Under cerulean skies…

So… I started playing Chrono Cross again a couple days ago, thinking that a game that moved me the way this did would be worth actually finishing some time - and I was just thinking about what this game does to me, so I decided to write a bit more about it than I did back then.

Many people don’t consider Chrono Cross a worthy sequel to Chrono Trigger. I’m inclined to say that it’s not much of a sequel at all, at least not as far as I’ve played. Either way, its beauty far surpasses its official predecessor in my opinion, and makes me wonder why the Final Fantasy series is so popular and this isn’t. I love this game from the deepest bottom of my very soul. It’s all a bit hard to explain without heavy spoilers, so forgive me if some of this seems a bit long-winded.

In the beginning, the game sets you up with the stereotypical oversleeping young lad called Serge as the lead character, but as soon as the clichéd “wake up, you’re late” opening event is over, you’re assaulted by an utterly, gloriously gorgeous little fishing village in which Serge leads a calm, idyllic life. He has a caring mother, a loving (if somewhat bossy) girlfriend and generally leads the good life in one of the most beautiful environments I’ve seen in a game.

Even here though, the game’s basic plot point shows through at every corner - people keep wondering about the past, about how things would be had they made different decisions ten years back, about whether “there’s another me somewhere, leading a different life”. I’m very, very prone to this kind of thinking myself, which makes this another big point where I can emotionally connect to the game. Either way, the idyllic life of a kid in a fishing village wouldn’t make for much of a game, so soon the world changes. Again going with the basic point, the changes are subtle, but the repercussions for the lead character incredible. Small stone, big pond, you know the concept. After the event that starts the actual plot of the game off, all of the beauty and idyll is still there, but no longer Serge’s to share. The game just tears you out of all the happiness, all the calm and repose, and leaves you a complete stranger in the only place that was ever familiar to you.

The game toys with the “what if” concept all the time. There’s about 40 recruitable characters in there, but you’re unlikely to even notice most of them if you only play it once. It has you make decisions without you even noticing that you are making a decision, because you normally don’t expect having this many alternatives in a game. And, of course, if you notice later on that you did make a decision that could’ve lead to multiple outcomes, it leaves you wondering what would’ve happened if you decided differently.

Not unlike Deus Ex, the decisions you make don’t influence the actual course of the plot much, but rather change the paths you take through it. Although I do read there’s eleven (!) endings in there, I haven’t reached a single one yet, so I might be off on this point. The relationship to Chrono Trigger is not really there as far as I’ve played, although there are quite a lot of references and recurring themes. I hear that this changes later on in the game, with the plot evolving to a point where it’s an actual sequel to CT - again, I haven’t got that far. Still, the basic plot point and the utter beauty the atmosphere of Chrono Cross radiates are very, very engaging to me.

I’m somewhat loath to talk about this game in technical terms, because I fear it might take the magic away, but I guess I won’t be getting around it now that I’ve started whetting your appetites (I hope). The polygonal characters merge beautifully and barely noticably with the painted backgrounds, and they’re more detailed than many other RPG characters I’ve seen on the Playstation. The graphics are very, very colorful, but in a good way. Everything just looks like it would on a beautiful summer’s day, and it gives me a massive craving to actually be there, soak up that beauty, and live a calm and laid-back life there. Walk along the beach with a nice girl, enjoy the sun, the clear water and blue sky, that kind of thing.

The music has quite a few pieces that were in Chrono Trigger already, but also quite some original stuff. The instruments are most probably synthetic, but don’t sound anywhere near like it, and together with the gorgeous tunes add even more beauty to the atmosphere. Time’s Scar (the theme from the intro video) is what moved me the most about this game for the first time; I have no idea what exactly there is about it but it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling somewhere deep inside. Other gorgeous tracks in the game are Time of the Dreamwatch and Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World, both of which are actually just different interpretations of the same basic theme.

The gameplay itself has a few points of note. First off, I normally loathe turn-based combat in RPGs. It bores me out of my skull. I hate it. Hate hate hate. Not so with Chrono Cross - the combat includes a stamina system, which breaks up the turns a lot because as long as any of your characters have stamina, you can switch freely between them and have them do stuff. Normal attacks use either one, two or three points of stamina for weak, strong and fierce attacks respectively, casting a spell (or “using an Element” as it’s called; more on that later) uses all of the seven points a character can have - but you can go into negatives. If you do, the character is unable to act until he’s back to seven points of stamina. I still haven’t quite figured out when enemies can or can’t attack; I assume they’re using the same system with less maximum stamina though. Stamina is recovered just like it’s spent - a character that doesn’t do anything regains as many stamina points as the one that is doing something expends, except when an element is used - that uses up seven stamina points, but all other characters only regain one. So basically, elements use stamina at seven times the rate of normal attacks.

On top of normal physical combat, there’s a unified magic/tech/item system called “Elements”. Every character has, based on their growth level (another interesting detail, read on), a certain “grid” in which elements can be arranged. Elements can be bought in stores or looted off dead enemies and treasure chests, and range from attack spells over one-use healing items to character-based special attacks. The latter are put into the grid at fixed points, the former can be freely arranged. Every element has a certain level; if it’s put into the grid at that level, it works at normal efficiency. Arranging it on higher levels gives bonuses, lower levels subtract from its effect. To use an element, a character first needs to attack - for every time an enemy is hit, the level of usable elements goes up by one, and once an element is used, the level it’s on is subtracted from that. So if you hit an enemy three times, you could use one L3 element, or one L2 and one L1 element. If you have the stamina, that is.

Moreover, there are no “levels” or “experience”. After every battle, however small, every character has a certain chance of getting a bonus on some stats. The probability for the stats differs from character to character, of course. The only kind of “levelling” there is are the Growth levels, which define how many levels and slots the element grid has. Even there, there’s no use in grinding for levels though, because new growth levels are awarded automatically for plot encounters. This way, Chrono Cross completely eliminates the need to levelgrind, which is what made all of the Final Fantasy games unbearable for me. Another thing I like is that there are no random encounters, which I loathe just as much as turn-based combat and levelgrinding - enemies just walk around on the map, and if you touch one, you go into combat. If you can avoid all enemies, you don’t need to fight any battles that aren’t plot relevant. You can, of course, kill enemies to gain stats, but even there you can only kill as many enemies as are walking around.

So, yeah. I love this game. It makes me feel good in a very sad way, and I love it for that just as much as I love it for being one of the most utterly, utterly beautiful games I’ve ever played.

What was the start of all this?

When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?

Perhaps it is impossible to grasp that answer now,

From deep within the flow of time…

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 9:31 and is filed under gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.