Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition (Switch) Review

Special thanks to Square Enix for the review copy!

Ah, Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross and I go way back. Full disclosure, I’m a huge fan of Chrono Trigger. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, and depending on the day you ask me, it might be my favorite JRPG of all time. So Chrono Cross, as the de facto sequel to that title, was in the unenviable position back in the year 2000 to act as a follow up to what I and many others considered to be the pinnacle of the genre. It wasn’t quite that. Chrono Cross was, and is, a weird and very different sort of game. It’s also, however, a beautiful and rich experience that I have learned to appreciate over the years. This brings me to Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition – Square Enix’s new remaster of the PlayStation 1 title. This was my first play through of the game in over a decade. So, is it a good remaster? What changed? Does the game still hold up, or did it leave my feeling a bit cross? I will not apologize for that pun.

Story

Everything is a multiverse nowadays. So, this remaster couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. In the same way that Chrono Trigger dealt with time travel and the possible ramification of those actions in different eras, Chrono Cross deals with alternate universes and how small changes can cascade and result in different parallel timelines having many interesting differences. The game has two worlds for you to explore, “Home World” and “Another World”. Each world has some subtle and not so subtle differences that will make exploring the same areas in both of them quite rewarding.

The story takes place in the world of Chrono Trigger, but you won’t see many of the same vistas. This is because the majority of the game takes place in El Nido, a tropical archipelago nestled away in a corner of Trigger’s world. You play as Serge, a teenage resident of the small fishing village of Arni. He has a mysterious connection to some sort of black panther from his childhood, but he seems to be living a pretty normal life. Very quickly, however, Serge finds himself in a world that is similar to his own while still being strikingly different. To start off with, everyone in his village is very adamant about the fact that he’s long dead. He is then joined by a mysterious and spunky girl that goes by the name of Kid and things really kick off from there.

Being a JRPG, a big part of the fun of the game is experiencing the story on your own. I won’t spoil anything more than I already have, but expect a lot of twists and turns. It can get weird, but the weirdness often occurs in a wonderful way. The game DOES have some narrative ties to Chrono Trigger, but it’s not really a direct sequel. In other words, don’t expect Robo to show up and join your party.

Gameplay

The remaster doesn’t change anything about the core gameplay, and in my opinion that’s a good thing. This is an old school turn based JRPG, but it’s also a pretty unique offering. You engage in combat when you run into an enemy, much like in Chrono Trigger. No random encounters here, although there are a few predetermined spots where you can get ambushed. Once you’re fighting an enemy, you can attack them with weak, mid, or strong attacks. Each attack has a percentage mark next to it that reflects your chances to hit the enemy. Hitting enemies builds up your element gauge, which is essentially your magic. These elements have different strength levels, and are also color coded. Different colors have varying degrees of effects against different enemy types. It sounds complicated, but the game has several tutorials that can assist you. The system encourages you to use magic in every fight, which is something I appreciate. I’m normally the sort of person that tries to conserve MP for boss fights. Speaking of, you can run away from all encounters in this game, including those with bosses.

As mentioned previously, the game gives you not one but two large worlds to explore. You explore a large world map with plenty of dungeons, cities, and other points of interests. There are plenty of puzzles, mini games, and side quests to help break up the combat and story, and you can recruit up to 45 characters in your party along the way. Every character has their own stats and special element attacks to help them feel fresh. That being said, you can not recruit all the characters on one playthrough. You’ll need to use New Game Plus for that.
The remaster adds a few quality of life changes, such as the option to do things like block “random” encounters or provide boosts in combat. Those are nice options if you need them, but I don’t think most players will. I did end up using the option to speed up gameplay fairly often, however, partly to combat framerate issue.

Presentation

This is a weird one to touch upon, because presentation has always been this game’s strong suit. The prerendered backgrounds look better than ever and the sheer imagination present in the locals is stunning. Much of this game takes place in tropical ocean side areas, but it also includes a diverse mix of fantasy and sci-fi settings that make the world a joy to explore. The graphics for the characters are slightly cleaned up from their PS1 versions, and I would say are largely serviceable. It won’t win over modern gamers just with looks, but the character models are large and full of personality. The FMV cutscenes, however, are pretty rough. They’re grainy and do not match the visual fidelity of the rest of the game. The game’s frame rate is also pretty sub standard. It’s been a few years since I’ve played the original on PS1, so I’m not sure how it compares, but a modern remaster really should have had this running much more smoothly.
The music, however, is sublime. This is one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time. Full stop. If there’s one area in this game that you can compare directly to Chrono Trigger it’s that.

Radical Dreamers

For long-time fans of the Chrono series, this addition might be more exciting than Chrono Cross itself. Radical Dreamers is a visual novel that originally released on Nintendo Satellaview in Japan in 1996 and had never seen rerelease or an official localization effort. This changes with this remaster. The game is short, but fun, especially for fans of Chrono Trigger. The game presents you with various scenarios (through text and mostly static images) and you have to decide what to do in each scenario based on the text options provided to you. So, you know, it’s a visual novel. The game’s story is in many ways an alpha version of Chrono Cross, with characters such as Kid and Serge being central figures, but it’s worth playing to spot the differences. It has multiple endings and is meant to be played several times. It’s a fun addition to the remaster package, but I wouldn’t buy Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition just for Radical Dreamers.

Verdict

Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is a tough one for me to review. As a game, Chrono Cross is very much a PS1 JRPG. The remaster doesn’t change that, although it does clean things up a bit. It’s a game that has its faults. It has 45 characters to recruit, but most have very little impact on the story and the fact that you use only 3 at a time means that many will be put on the back burner. It has a great sense of adventure and a plot with some satisfying narrative moments, but the narrative can also become convoluted at times. That being said, the game has much more going for it than against it. It’s a classic.

This remaster is ok. It fails a bit in updating the presentation. The frame rate and rough FMV quality stands out the most in this regard. Still, Chrono Cross is a great game, and if this is your only way to play it I would strongly suggest it.