Chrono Cross is still one of the worst games ever.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, most of the choices in Suikoden 1 are basically just window dressing and have minimal impact on the ending; some characters may or may not be wandering around in the epilogue and that's about it. I consider that a plus, btw. I find Suikoden 2 to be a skosh overrated but I'm fond of the interpretation that "fate" in the series is mostly just the result of dumb assholes like Jowy being gullible, which makes me happy because fuck Jowy. Most importantly, the two Suikoden games I've played reward completionist bullshit but they're actually, you know, complete. You can get any ending and be familiar with the characters that ending affects without having played the previous games in the series. Whereas from what I can tell from my own experiences and having watched a "Let's Play" Chrono Cross comes across like they got a budget cut and had to text dump through the final stretch en route to explaining that everything is according to keikaku and that this was all worth it because we're saving a secondary Chrono Trigger character. Which, is extra annoying because that article I talked about earlier went to great lengths to explain that Chrono Cross is totally great as long as you accept that it's not a direct sequel.

[Leress]

I've played and beaten Suikoden 1,2,3,4,5, and Tactics. Did LPs of 4 and Tactics. Haven't played the Visual Novels ones, the DS, or the PSP (recently fan translated). I really liked 5, I get why people didn't like 4. Tactics was okay, 3 was also good.

[Leress]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GRxp72A3r8

The Chrono Cross "Remaster" is announced, and it released on April 7, 2022.

[Sir Neil]

I saw that announced and immediately knew Lago would be pissed. Suikoden 1 wasn't bad, but I ragequit 2 once I realized that you would never get revenge on the flying monkey. At least in Dragon Age you can execute the assassin rather than recruit him.

[JonSetanta]

Koumei, if anyone in all of TGD knows their retro games just from someone's vague description, it's you. Thank you.

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/The_Legen ... oon/Combat

It is indeed LoD. I HATE that game.

But Chrono Cross... wow... I had just completed FF7 after about 90 hours of struggle and minmaxing and ahem ahem dies early finished with 100% completion (all the materia and naturally that elusive home-bred chocobo needed to get Knights of the Round) by about 1999, borrowed CC from a friend, and it legit looked worse graphically, had worse combat, and mostly wasted a lot of time on cutscenes of beaches and typical staring-off-whistfully.

I didn't get far but I do remember this bug fight now that I've looked up an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgAGDqZTzYI

[Libertad]

Well speak of the devil: a remastered version is coming out one month from now. It will be available for PC and the major console platforms.

New Features in the Remastered Edition:
◆ 3D models converted to HD
◆ Refined character illustrations
◆ Higher-quality background music
◆ Switch enemy encounters on or off
◆ Background filter feature
◆ Battle enhancement features to make combat easier
◆ Auto-battle function
◆ Switch between imitation pixel font and HD font
◆ Change screen resolution

https://square-enix-games.com/en_US/gam ... rs-edition

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1133 ... S_EDITION/

[Dogbert]

Provided they don't have the insane idea of pricing it as a AAA release as they did with 12, I'd actually be willing to give it a shot, if only to be contrarian, I'd just have to repeat myself time and time again "this game wasn't intended to be related to CT."

[Leress]

Provided they don't have the insane idea of pricing it as a AAA release as they did with 12, I'd actually be willing to give it a shot, if only to be contrarian, I'd just have to repeat myself time and time again "this game wasn't intended to be related to CT."

Then the Miguel fight happens and well...

[WalkTheDin0saur]

As far as I can tell what went wrong was...

1. Square's non-Final-Fantasy team is assigned to work on a sequel to Chrono Trigger.

2. One or a couple of the creative leads go to the suits and fight to be able to develop a new IP instead. They get the greenlight. That's Xenogears. Xenogears is really clearly some nerd's baby and at this point I'm happy for him / them.

3. A year and change later, the Xenogears team is running out of time and money faster than they're running out of plot. The team asks for an extension, the suits say no.

4. Faced with a time crunch, Xenogears sacrifices gameplay and pacing in favor of infodumping its overwrought I'm-14-and-this-is-deep auteur genius plot that is IN NO WAY derivative of Evangelion and only a very stupid person would think that. If you've played it into disk 2 you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't there's no point in me explaining it in a spoiler, because you probably won't believe me that a late 90s Square game could have shit the bed this badly.

5. Sales are... not terrible but disappointing. The suits put the team back on Chrono 2.

6. Butthurt creative geniuses get to work cramming as much of Xenogears as possible into the new Chrono game. Save points as population-control devices! The monster stalking you is secretly your dad! The female lead is secretly a magical clone engineered for a task of cosmic importance! Dark Serge! Most importantly, another overcomplicated tell-don't-show plot that has to be rapid fire infodumped in the last third of the game. Overly ambitious planning vs the harsh reality of crunch time is a problem every game dev has to face at some point, that's fine, but these guys were too busy blaming the suits for cutting them off on Xenogears to learn from their mistakes.

7. Butthurt creative geniuses also express their resentment by bringing in elements from Chrono Trigger just to shit on them. It seems like most of the team was unaware Cross was supposed to be a direct sequel to Trigger, and said as much in interviews. But once Plot Infodump Time starts, it's also time to start killing off everyone you liked from Trigger. And if that doesn't do anything for you because you never played Trigger, the plot doesn't even try to engage you! The ultimate plot secret and final boss fight is a loose end from Chrono Trigger that has barely been mentioned in Chrono Cross! This plot was written exclusively to piss in Chrono Trigger fans' cheerios. It doesn't even try to stand on its own.

8. This is all extra offensive because the problems wait until the end of the game to show up. If Serge had walked out to Opassa Beach for the first time to find two different evil Serge clones quoting from an Intro to Modern Philosophy textbook while fucking Marle's corpse, we wouldn't have wasted our time playing further. But that shit shows up in the last third of the game. We have like 35 hours of great-to-pretty-good game to get us invested, then 15 of some fucking manbaby throwing a tantrum because the big mean executives wouldn't keep publishing the pretentious sci-fi decology he wrote in his dorm room.
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So that's what I think the problem was. Chrono Cross sucks, or at least the last third of it does, because the team leads were mad they weren't working on Xenogears 2 instead and didn't have the professionalism to make a good-faith effort anyway.