ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2024
- Two years in the making, my full retrospective on Square's controversial Chrono Cross is now complete. I've compiled each of the three parts in one video, allowing you to easily watch all TWO HOURS of this fun experiment for the channel. This retrospective critique/analysis covers: The game AND story of the original PS1 version, the divisive remaster, and the recent localization of Cross' Satellaview origin game RADICAL DREAMERS.
Love or hate Chrono Cross, I hope I can inform you on a new perspective and make you laugh along the way. I put a lot of myself in this one, and I adore that you can see me grow as a creator with each part. Some parts thankfully did not grow along, like my god ugly hair. I cringe watching those segments for part one still!
For people who have been watching since the beginning, thank you all for your patience while I got my life together while working on this. For those discovering it here? Enjoy the ride.
Support us on Patreon: / drcullenphd
Follow me on Twitter: / drcullenphd
Script Editor: / supremezerker
Thumbnails by: / _xanderac
Additional art by: / syl_phy
Voice Cameos: / kbash
/ gcvazquez
0:00 Part 1: The Game
41:56 Part 2: The Story
1:42:04 Epilogue: The Radical Dream
#ChronoCross #chronotrigger #RadicalDreamers #Retrospective #squareenix - เกม
New pinned comment: days after posting this supercut cementing this project as done they announce they're patching the remaster to fix the issues lmao just my luck. Anyway enjoy peak
Update: the patch is out, it seemingly fixes everything so this is now the definitive version
It's already out?
@Riser Sin yeah, patch just went out!
@@culIen It's pretty good. They even fixed Pip!
Woulda liked the Harle concepts to be released with it due to her being rumored to be the Another Kid or something in the original plan. Not to mention Guile getting more content, but I'm just happy the game even got a patch to begin with.
I think one of the reasons the game appears to “reward” the player with more and more immediately useful party members for taking the choices that abandon Kid in the first half of the game is due to how Serge gets the vision of him stabbing and apparently murdering Kid in the intro. Serge/the player gets the choice of trying to avoid that possible future by keeping his distance from Kid.
I also think that you are not actually supposed to solve the game and get the best ending on the first playthrough. The clues the game gives you on what you have to do are pretty sparse and cryptic and they actually come pretty early on, before the player realizes their significance to the story, so without a game guide they are easy to miss. I think the player is supposed to notice these hints and twig in to what they mean more easily on New Game +, when he’s already played through the events once.
This is probably also why some of the major story elements are missable. The game is supposed be play as a Groundhog Day-like time loop, where you are supposed to play it over and over again, exploring every option, until you put all the pieces together to solve the mystery.
Bro, I never realized that logic but now it makes complete sense!, This game is a book full of secrets, every year I find new things about this game and love it even more.
Having recently replayed Trigger, I wanna say something I don't see a lot of people point out. Chrono Triggers' pacing is virtually perfect! You never feel sick of fighting, or sick of towns and talking, its just a pacing masterclass.
The problem with Chrono-Cross was that at some point, the plot became either satisfying the requirements of a dare... or making payment on a losing bet. There were fifteen dragons locked in a coma, to fight a computer named FATE, but the Harley look-a-like was actually a dragon, and Lynx was Serge was Lynx was Serge at Viper manor, and Miguel was stuck in the city that Serge's daddy was a dragon to a time-egg who was sick in the other world where the dragons all formed the Ultron-of-dragons so that the Joker could Lynx.....
I played it. I enjoyed the crap out of it. But that story was rough and convoluted.
Nadia's Bell was a fuckin gut punch the first time I played Cross
It manages to hit me every single time I revisit it too, Kato and co were off the goop with that scene conceptually
Therapist: Libertarian Lynx is real, he cant hurt you
Libertarian Lynx: 1:58:23
I loved Crono Cross when it was a new game. I played it again a few years later and kept the strategy guide for over a decade in case I wanted to play it again.
Damn, this is an amazing video. 75% through right now. Well done!!
I swear this video could have a quarter million views and I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Very, very funny, and also very insightful. I mean, I had each of these games the years they came out (yeah, SNES '95 I mean). I actually didn't want this to end. These games impacted me beyond words and in my 40's their shine hasn't worn (Trigger is my #1 of all time). Anyways, you killed it man. Phenomenal video.
Thank you for this. I’m going through a rough time and I needed this.
The Australian jokes still get me every time.
I'm saluting you by eating a TimTam.
To get the campfire scene on Water Dragon Aisle, you have to avoid recruiting Razzly regardless of which route you choose. Found it on the Chronos Compendium. Great video btw
Great video! It's so good to see people posting CC content in current year!
How have I not found this channel before?! Dude, your humor is on POINT! Subscribed!
This one hit me right in the feels. I also had a similar experience picking up and putting this game down, but over two decades instead of one.
First playthrough was around 2001 to 2004 when I was in college. I bought a PS2 with my first credit card and played about as many PS1 games as PS2 games due to backwards compatibility. I downloaded so many of the CC songs off of Limewire or whatever flavor of piracy was in vogue at the time and had to play the game. I don't remember how far I got... maybe to the Lynx switcheroo, before shelving my effort in exchange for focusing on graduating college.
Next time playing was in 2013 as a working adult in my own home. Again on the same PS2 that followed me across state lines, I purchased a new copy of Chrono Cross and attempted a playthrough. I took a week off from work to play it, along with taking care of homeowner responsibilities. During this playthrough, I got to the six dragons quest. After several stop/starts, my memory faded and I gave away or sold all of my old games.
Fast forward five years later to purchasing a Nintendo Switch and getting back into gaming, and fast forward another five years to 2023, I purchased the Radical Dreamers edition and made it through, thanks to selective fast forwarding and more reliance on a guide to make the duration shorter. Still took me about 40 hours to finish it. This time, I was a husband and father, another stage in life and much removed from my college and early-career selves.
Cullen, fantastic work on this. I didn't get some of the jokes because I'm an old(er) fart, but the details here were nice callbacks and elaboration on a game I just finally wrapped up. The game's story is convoluted and took some reviewing to (not) fully understand. My favorite scenes were the Dead Sea and Nadia's bell and Chronopolis. The six dragons quest again just felt like such filler and dragged on too much for me, although I powered through and found it was not as bad as my 2013 gameplay.
Now, I haven't played Radical Dreamers yet.. maybe I should save that one for retirement... or maybe there will be a third Chrono game to take up that stage of my life.
Chrono cross is fantastic. The ending of the game when you realize the entire world you where playing in was a by product of a scientific experiment always stuck with me. Very cool
"The safe thing is to start with light attacks"
Young me: "FIERCE FIERCE (Element)"
I always thought of Serge as a Japanese character. He even comes from a fishing village which happens a lot in Japanese stories, you know with them being on an island and all. Most JRPG's are also written from a uniquely Japanese perspective especially in the 80's-90's before everybody was online. I think that was a large reason for their appeal to a western audience because regardless of the the characters design or world the creators were influenced by a thousand years of Japanese culture and history. Even to this day that perspective and story telling is more popular than ever across the world because of manga and anime.
He lives in El Nido. he visits Moalboal. I think he is filipino.😅
@@DrewpyPlatshe’s neither none of those places exist in universe…. You don’t have to assign random shit to him
@@maccamachine How'd you get so sassy? can't take a play on words? The real El Nido IS known for its stunning limestone cliffs, clear turquoise waters, coral reefs, beautiful beaches and island hoping and features an Island That has a similar name to marbule / マーブル. I think these could have been points of inspiriation. Clearly it is a fantasy genre game 🙄...
Pisses me off every time because I love Glenn and I feel bad for kidd but every time I have to ignore kidd to get Glenn.
I guess I'm in the minority since I played both Trigger and Cross, loved both from the start (and always will, each for different reasons), and wasn't disappointed in the least with Cross. After I finished it, that's when the fan translation for Radical Dreamers was released, and I even played and loved that one too! What great memories 😊❤️⭐️
This is me too. They are very different games so it isn't fair to compare them play style wise and story wise, they are all interesting.
I bought a TV with picture in picture in the late 90's just so I could grind levels in JRPG's while watching TV and playing games in the small window.
I hate how it took me till this upload to finally get the golf club joke. Amazing stuff even after dozens of re-watches Cullen.
I THINK YOU'RE THE FIRST ONE WHO GOT IT, SO MUCH SO THAT I FORGOT I DID THAT JOKE LMAO
@@culIen IT WAS SO GOOD WHEN IT FINALLY CLICKED.
This video was amazing. This channel is severely underrated seriously. Your sense of humor is great. As someone with a deep emotional attachment to this game, this was an emotional rollercoaster. I was laughing for most of the video but the end of part 2 left me completely IN TEARS lmao it really got under my skin
Holy shit. 2 hours of pure gold. Easiest sub ever.
🫡 I'll keep it up then thank you
I had to fight my own dragons as I came of age, the ultimate fantasy game is our own reality. Playing all these great games helped me to see that. This one is still on my shelf.❤
Great job with these videos.
Cozy cozy video time!
Thank you. Great video. ❄️🔥
"Orlha's pretty good so I guess do her"
>pause<
Wat
>play<
"stuff as well"
Oh. Hm. I guess no jokes to be made.
Awesome video. I just beat Cross for the first time. First played it 24 years ago on my friend's PS1 in high school. It felt good to knock that down. Also got the good ending, though maybe could have chosen someone better than Fargo to be there with me, he felt kinda... I dunno. Weird tonal shift.
Anyway, I will be following and looking forward to other videos you produce. Cheers!
Nicely done 👍
Awesome video I still really enjoy this game
Awesome video brother and a huge step into my nostalgic mind . subscribed
Ah, Echochrome. I never had the full game, but I did have a demo on my PsP back in the day. Thanks for the nostalgia!
Now to wait for the other two people to get that reference.
We Echochrome Demo Only Enjoyers are truly a dying breed. I don't know anyone who bought the full version haha
@@culIen I come from the depths of the void to inform you that I played the entire game. I enjoyed Echochrome quite a bit!
I actually played Chrono Cross first and I had a hard time understanding the story, back then I had money and time so after beating CC and getting all its endings i then went out to buy the ps1 version of CT , it was while playing CT I made a lot of the connections missing from CC or not fully explained, both games do complement each other well but CC has a more complex story for sure, I enjoyed both, to this day I consider playing CC a visual delight, all the artwork and music, *chefs kiss*
The music alone is worth the game price lol. There are some bangers in there
I don't know if you saw my post in one of your pre-supercut vids, but I also played Chrono Cross at 16 (when it had just come out, no less), hated it then, and started playing it for the second time only recently. As a matter of fact, I finished it three days ago. The quickest summary I can give, because lord knows it's hard not to rant about this game endlessly, is that I enjoyed it and now have to admit that I like it...but I'm also pretty sure I would have thought it was crap if I had had been playing it for the first time. The main story is truly a mess, and the secondary stories and all the subtexts alike are underdeveloped and insubstantial. The audio/visual side of the game is F'n beautiful, and if you take the scenes one by one, they're often very well put together. Even the battle engine was better than I'd remembered it. But WOW, is the narrative ever riddled with complications and weaknesses. God is it ever tempting to try making my own review of this game...
If you like it, you like it! Nothing wrong with that, or having a complicated relationship with it. I say go for it, write that review! Nothing to lose tbh, it'll probably be very cathartic too to voice those issues you do have with it.
Hey buddy. Don’t gotta but if u want, I just posted a comment today. Read it if u wanna understand better. Yes it is underdeveloped sadly… they had so much they wanted to do and say to us. Google chrono compendium if u never heard of it it’s the entirety of the series in detail. Or ignore me. I’m a super fan because of what this game actually tries to do
I played Cross first, and I loved it. Even after playing Trigger, I loved Cross. This video was a joy to watch.
I still remember when it first came out, reading a review of chrono cross in EGM or whatever I used to subscribe to. They gave it a 10/10...maybe the only one I've ever seen
I could never get in to cross despite Trigger being my favorite game of all time. I tried a few times but cross just never clicked for me. I disliked the combat system, I disliked the character progression, and the story (which did have me initially curious) just wasn’t good enough to make me put up with the gameplay.
Couldn't agree more
I love Chrono Cross. I've never beaten Trigger, but I've beat Cross multiple times. I bought it immediately on Switch and played through it fully once again
I like the fact that the story is complicated. It keeps replays interesting.
And the music is amazing
Only 30mins in but kinda surprised the soundtrack hasn't been mentioned yet.
So the videos in this supercut were made kind of far apart from one another, and I haven't watched this in awhile, so I'm honestly not even sure if I do bring it up or not. If I didn't, I think I kind of just assumed people would have known how good it was? Regardless, hope you enjoy the rest!
Those classic characters from… Xenogears..! I giga luld at that part 😂
Not the Xenogears Disc 2 summary chair 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@27:50 omg this absolutely sent me 💀💀💀
4:55 LMFAO 😂 It somehow didn’t strike me as odd when I was a kid…
I don't know if it was intentional or not but Alessa/Heather from Silent Hill had a lot of a lot of similarities with Schala/Kid:
-The daughter/clone plot.
-Her new incarnation having a different hair color (blonde) compared to the original self and a more active personality.
-Both lost their (foster) parent figure and were in the road for revenge.
Maybe they were just following the trends of that era.Spiral (sequel of Ring/Ringu) had Sadako returning as a daughter/ clone ...well,sort of .It is complex.
This is one of my all time favorite rpg. Also I played this before trigger. 😆
Demi-humans have been expelled from 109 fishing villages but it's totally not their fault.
For me its the combat and progression that gets me excited about this game, and its the story and characters that put me to sleep, the combat, element and equipment systems work in tandem to offer endless build and party variety
Great video on its own, but anything with Kbash is elevated beyond its original form. Thanks for this!
Honestly I agree LMAO
10% of his lines from part 2 on were rough ideas of what I wanted him to do followed by "improv libertarian nonsense" and he just continued giving me the funniest shit ever. Genuinely amazing guy, and for so many reasons this retrospective wouldn't exist without him.
Lol, when I finally beat Chrono Trigger, 6 years ago, it was in the middle of the worst tooth pain of my life. After I beat it, my tooth got so painful, I cried, as an adult. I wouldnt wish that on ANYBODY lol. Crazy you d played Chrono Cross, during your wisdom teeth arc
I love this game but I never got to the true ending because everything is so easy after you complete the game the first time I would end making a new save rather than trying to recruit everyone just to get a sense of challenge.
You deserve more views and likes. This video was a super fun watch, great job
Thanks! Here's to hoping, and in the meantime I'm going to keep on the grind ^-^
I thought I was the only person who physically cannot bring myself to be a douche in games! Thank you for validating me and my insanity!!
50:29 echochrome reference! o/ (Also, it's true.)
Made it through. The Selenitic Age joke was my favorite part. Stands out among all of Myst.
I had the SNES, not Playstation. Why, Squaresoft, did you release the sequel to an awesome game on a different platform? However I've long wondered why I don't hear about Chrono Cross as I do Chrono Trigger. To this day Chrono Trigger is regularly on lists of best games of all time, whereas I haven't been able to find people elsewhere saying so much as Chrono Cross is their favorite game. This really fills my holes of this Chrono mystery. I credit my name I've been using on the internet since 1999 to Chrono Trigger, I still am really invested in it. I wanted to learn more about those characters of Chrono Cross, but I guess there isn't much to get invested in there.
I need to replay Chrono Cross. I played it when it was first released back when I was 15 years old and did enjoy the came even though it was nothing like Chrono Trigger.
i am pretty sure that to get that scene with Kid she has to be in your party after you get the Ice breath
Great video, I loved both of the Chrono Games, but I did play Trigger before Cross which made it a bit easier to understand. You kind of lost me at the white guilt part, I don't think this has anything to do with race. I played this as a kid and as an adult and my understanding has always been the same, sort of xenophobia that can exist specially in cultures that are disconnected from other cultures, e.g. islands (myself being from an island, hispanic). Seeing the game through the eyes of an outsider (Catboi Serge) let you experience this xenophobia, which does not have to do race necessary. This feeling of xenophobia, or seeing it first hand is something that any person, regardless of race, can experience by just visiting another culture they don't belong to.
That wasn't meant entirely to be a universal point in the vid, just me trying to come to terms with maybe why *I* didn't click with it. I just wanted to be introspective, not provide a reason on why others might not like the game. I knew not everyone would like that segment, but it felt important for me to get that out in a video series secretly about personal growth and the game that made me acknowledge this. To kind of compare and contrast who I was with who I am now, (without trying to gas myself up, hopefully). Thanks for watching!
@@culIen Fair enough, you did an amazing job with this video man! I wish more people would give Cross a chance. I feel like Chross has more layers to peel off with it's message and story than CT did.
Belthasar at 1:30:00 made me LMAO
The Element system was one of my favorite rpg combat system, and that is what i enjoyed the most of this game, not realy the story. The story is good, but it itself doesn't really give for hours of grinding that allows you deep cusotmization of the combat. (back in the day when i used to love grinding in rgps.)
Chrono trigger is fantastic. Cross is a tear jerker
I love chrono cross, It's my favorite jrpg♥ Chrono trigger is a darn good jrpg as well its hard to top these games !
38:40
It really is. Hori and Armor Project were all over Chrono Trigger.
I read it all and all i got was "peepee poopoo lmao".......which is valid
Given its story I honestly don’t see how it isn’t considered a Chrono trigger 2
Quick correction about Funguy. He is Lisa's father, and in anotherworld he died, in homeworld he became Funguy. Sure, homeworld version of him isnt great, but anotherworld version of Lisa was greatly effected by his death.
Also, she was once friends with Leena and they both have unique interactions with Lisa. Sure, it isnt huge, but there is a story there.
24:23 underrated
I love this game. I'm one of the few people I know who actually understand the timeline.
ALL HAIL POSUSHU! QUEEN OF ALL DARK REALMS.
"In retrospect it does not make sense" ... really? You managed to miss every thing that explained why it worked? How? I felt like they were beating it into my head it was said so often.
Old? I excitedly, feverishly played this game in college. (Edit: actually it was a year after, my sophomore year, because I had to wait until I got a PS2. If it weren't for the game case clearly being PS1 I'd forget it was a PS1 game, it came out so late in the PS1's active period. It was hard to wait, I wasn't buying a PS1 knowing the PS2 was coming and was going to be backward compatible. The PS2 hype was huge back then.I was such a Chrono Trigger fan every day other people played Chrono Cross while I waited for the PS2 felt like I was betraying something.) I'm not done with this video yet but so far I don't disagree. Internally I struggle with this game. So many wonderful aspects, the music, except battle music, has proven unforgettable,even my old age. But yeah man, I don't know exactly what parts inhabit that area where I'm deluding myself because I love this game, I just want to love it more. But the aspects I can identify as not optimal are more defined in the fog of my mind with your work. Nice connectios to life in general, good eye. My man, this is a great video.
Thank you so much! I really do wish I could experience rpg Nostalgia for this era of games, as I was a kid during it, but I wouldn't end up experiencing most of this around the time I got a vita as a teen. I had a ps2 as a kid, but I basically never bothered with games earlier than that haha. Hopefully the rest of the video held up in your opinion, or at least was enough to entertain you!
Just hit a Goomba. Problem solved.
you didn't mention my boy Johnny's corpse in the dead sea
Scene with Kid. I haven't verified you have to, but the only time I've seen it.. I refused Kid at the start and refused to save her. I had Lenna and Glenn.
Chrono cross was a game I just couldn't get into because of the battle system. Takes too long to load into the fight. Takes too long to load out of the fight and the fights just take too long when you're in the damn things. It's like final fantasy 9 all over but I like that battle system. Everything else about the game seemed great but I just never got far enough into it to find out.
2:40
Yup
No end game secret bosses or stuff to fight also no flight or time traveling at a whim
This triggered a memory. One day, I asked chat gpt what it's favorite NPC character would be from Chrono Trigger and it chose Schala.
I asked them to simulate a human when answering so it wouldn't say that it was an AI and doesn't have an opinion.
1:11:33 - Samus Sez: "The Baby"
1:04:27 actually don’t Crono and Marle horribly die when Porre invades and sacks Guardia. Sure they get married. Sure they must have had a child that survives (because Marle has a descendant in 2300). But they still peaced as Guardia burns.
I'm not sure how that contradicts what I said in that segment. The time code you posted talks about the ending of the SNES game as presented is outwardly happy, but the events after that introduced in post-release media track with what you mention and what I was discussing in the video. Original game ends hapilly, and everything that happens after is sad which I think is a fine way to take the story. If I understand your comment, that is.
@@culIenIt's just more of a gut punch. The protagonist (after coming back from death once) and his lady love, after floating high above the sky on balloons (depending on your ending) get killed off shortly after what is a good ending. Granted I think Cross came out in the US before any of the additional material in Trigger was known so the original analysis you provide still holds up. Had we gotten full Trigger material before Cross then the Nadia's bell scene may not have hit has hard since a player would have already known that Guardia fell. Playing through this on the Radical Dreamers remake for some nostalgia which is how I stumbled upon this video. Don't worry. I got SaGa Frontier Remastered too...never finished that one.
27:51 I chose not to save her. Not to be evil or anything. But if I was in that situation, I'd probably be too depressed to actually try, I'd just give up since they are extinct.
I agree with so many points you made about this game, but at about the 1:14:00 mark I was overwhelmed by political terms and phrases.
I'll bite and engage in good faith. What are the exact political phrases that overwhelmed you. List them please.
Ayn Rand....I'm coming
he really said that with his whole Lynxlussy
@@culIen it's hilarious
I find it interesting that you didn't like Lynx, because you couldn't relate to him aesthetically. When I played this for the first time when I was 16 (back in 2000). I absolutely loved Lynx (Forever Zero 4 Life) and wished they found some way to work him into a Dyssidia game. Lynx struggled with the awkwardness of growing up and becoming your father, maybe that's what drew me to him.
Thats an honestly cool theme that I wish I realized sooner, damn haha! I think what I was trying to get across is that I was just narrow-minded enought to not be able to relate to someone who I perceived as close to myself. It wasn't until later in life where I grew out of that, and now he's one of my favorite characters in the game
@@culIen You also have to admit, Forever Zero in FF Dyssidia would have been a sick finish.
Chrono Cross is one of those games that if they were to ever do a Remaster of, it'd be the one game that Id be completely okay with them making some serious revisions to bring it more in line with it's source material. Hell, get Toriyama on board for the characters and world design.
For all it's flaws it has SO MUCH potential, the execution just felt off then, and it still does today for me.
reading this comment after toriyama just recently died is so sad, you me etc read this comment when he was alive and we didn't even realize he would die so soon
@@amarg7657 Oof, just learning from your comment that he passed. RIP Toriyama.
So, in the end, the devs didn't lie when they said the game wasn't a sequel because this was the end of Chrono Trigger's storyline, yeah?
I ask everybody here, would chrono 3 (break) have solved what this game lacked?
Leena is one of the best characters in the game believe it or not
Not commonly known ...chrono cross is not sequel to trigger. Stated by the developers .they Just share some similarities
Step 1: Make fun of the stereotypical "angry gamer" shtick of the late 2000s
Step 2: I'm gonna need alcohol for this!
Always good to drink in a safe and positive gamer environment ☺
I didn't like that Schala didn't have the blue hair like she did in Chrono Trigger she doesn't look like her.
I guess I'm the only one in this world that likes CC more than CT haha
he do write scripts good
The dwarves attacking the fairies isn't out of nowhere. They quite literally threw Razzly to the Pentapus for her to be eaten. The dwarves are very much evil. You don't even actually need to kill the hydra, you just need a phial of its humour. The reason you have to kill the Hydra is because, well, neither the Hydra nor the Dwarves will cooperate for no reason other than the Dwarves being racist.
The dwarves ARE evil. The Fairies ARE stupid and emotional, and it's explicitly called out that when they calm down later they will not continue to blame humans for the dwarves' actions, because cooler heads (Rosetta and Razzly specifically) prevail on this front. They still won't apologize for blaming humans for what the dwarves choose to do mind you, but they won't continue to do so. It should be noted that racism is rampant from both sides of the human v nonhuman conflict, especially for mainland humans, and this is even straight up shown to you with the abuse of demi human workers in Termina and the fact that you spend the final dungeon actually fighting the radical environmentalist anti-human faction.
The hydra isn't the last one in the world. They explicitly still exist in the Mainland. The Hydra you kill is the last one in the El Nido Archipelago, but NOT the last one in the world, IIRC it's even mentioned that the reason why you can't just get one from the Mainland is that only a huge ship can cross the passage that leads into El Nido until the tide changes. It's also a factor in both worlds that people want to explore the hydra marshes, so yes, someone will kill the Hydra even if you don't (and IIRC you can even go to the Hydra Marshes later to find a guy who tells you that his group was the one that did it).
While I will absolutely agree that this part is definitely rushed and could've been done massively better, it doesn't really have any gaping plotholes, just thematic and narrative choices that kinda suck. Not even the fact that Kid gets rescued anyway, because she gets rescued by Norris, who comes from the Mainland even if it's weird that he has Hydra antivenom on him, and you meet Norris in Viper Manor in disguise as a dishwasher. This is even made explicit if you take the specific ending where Kid and Norris storm Viper Manor together. Chrono Trigger made it clear that time will generally try to sort of "self correct" so that even if things are different they will still try to develop in a somewhat similar way, so it's fair to assume that history will generally adapt to any changes you make like taking a different path to complete a goal.
Really, the biggest issue is that the Dwarves are straight up evil and thus you don't feel bad for slaughtering them and in fact you feel a little bit bad for letting them go at the end if you get the "best ending" for the Dwarves/Water Dragon Isle subplot. Yes, sure, you kind of need them to protect and nurture the Hydra until it's strong enough to defend itself and support the Hydra Marshes so they don't become a poisonous swamp, but I feel like maybe introducing a friendly dwarf that tried to solve matters with peace (like, say, maybe when you go to Hydra Marshes you can find a dwarf in the marshes that you can explain the situation to, he agrees to help but gets shot down by the dwarf leader who picks a fight and eventually brings out the Hydra to fight you and you're forced to kill it in self defense), and you can only get the "Best" ending by helping that Dwarf become the new leader of the Dwarves.
Hell, you can even tie it into the Razzly situation by having you meet the 'good' dwarf as he's trying to save Razzly from the Pentapus because what his fellow dwarves did to her is hella fucked up, and since he owes you his life, he pledges to support you, and the only way to get the best ending is to fight the Hydra with both him and Razzly in your party. You recruit him and with him in the party you don't have to deal with random dwarf fights, only the boss fight against the dwarf leader and his minions and then the hydra. It gives the conflict nuance, it makes it so there is no direct right or wrong, there's good dwarves, there's good humans, there's good fairies, but they all have an uphill climb because of the bad eggs of each race.
Maybe having the late game water dragon isle fairies being apologetic and sorry about blaming the humans for what the dwarves did, or making it so dwarves and fairies live together after the events of Water Dragon Isle and have regular trade with Arni and communication with the Marshes, while being thankful because their isolated world has now been opened with communication from outsidsers, would work to give this a little more weight. Plus, some gameplay impact in that if you do it this way, when you come back to fight the Water Dragon, there's no monsters whatsoever and you can just talk to a fairy at the entrance to be immediately taken to the bottom to face the Water Dragon directly, or maybe the fairies open up a shop and you can buy special items or rare elements there (I dunno, maybe level 6 elements to sort of offset not having one of the best party members in the game in this route?).
I feel like there's soooo much to do with this, and they do so very little with it.
huh?wtf did i miss? why from the begginin of the second part forward you started talking about so stuff??? when did all that happen?? when did you tell all that??????
"so stuff"?
@@culIen "so much stuff" i forgot 1 word
@eumesmo7698 not entirely sure what you mean still in context with the vid, but I'll chalk it up to either a year passing between parts or Cross' story just being dense haha
This is my favorite game of all time
Its kind long story
I already came tô terms with Cross a long time ago.. Great game, great story, some poor elements in gameplay..
great video, but jacket is mid ngl ☠
You know what compared to some of the recent comments I'll file this under "acceptable constructive criticism" thank you for your service 🫡
@@culIen tee hee, ur welcome :) btw, how do you think the game criticism industry in the 2000s affected peoples perception of this game at the time... do you think the reception and perception would be different if the game were released today? I guess my larger question is, I feel game "journalists" that work for big corporations these days aren't journalists at all, and have sooo much more bias and can't possibly give a fair critique, because many times they have direct conflict of interest (Greg from Kinda Funny hosting a Playstation event 🤦♀lolz)... Chrono Cross is one of my favorite games of all time... perhaps I'm wearing rose colored nostalgia glasses as well, but when I first played this game, there weren't many outlets for creative discussion and discourse like there is today, and we relied pretty heavily on the game reviewers on TV... I'm glad that many of them were open to giving it a try... do you have any general thoughts about game media and journalism these days? ur da best bro :)
@PulseXMaxi well, as someone who does game journalism I have a small amount of insight. from my experience, these days big corpo game journos basically aren't a thing anymore. Game reviewers are mostly underpaid hobbyists, and with that comes the same amount of bias you'd find in just about any fan. Since reviews are such a subjective thing, people are limited by their own scope. I think Cross is a naturally divisive game and I'm not entirely sure if releasing it for the first time today would have changed much. This had less to do with the industry at the time and more with expectations from being a sequel to trigger.
Overall, and this may not be the answer you were looking for, I'm sympathetic to a majority of reviewers and indifferent to the ones who might argue in bad faith. Pre-launch reviews naturally have tight deadlines, and the people covering them are going in blind. They don't have full hindsight or community discussion, so they'll miss stuff on occasion. No one is perfect, I've even given scores I regret, but everyone is out there doing their best and I think thr industry would be worse without critical analysis.
@@culIen appreciate your insight
It was too much of a departure from the first game. The story, characters, combat abilities, etc
Felt like it was riding off the coattails of Chrono Trigger.