What was the start of all this? When did the cogs of fate begin to turn? Perhaps it is impossible to grasp that now, from deep within the flow of time. But, for a certainty back then, we loved so many and hated so much. We hurt others and were hurt ourselves. Yet even then, we ran like the wind... whilst out laughter echoed... under cerulean skies. Always liked the beginning. Never got to the part where all of the CT references came rushing in. They should have put a few closer to the beginning to hook us. They'd have sold twice as many copies or more.
They did, a game named Radical Dreamer but the maker unhappy of the quality and never released it in common platform that time PsX or Saturn or Sega or whatever....made a big hole between Cross and Trigger and cause Trigger fans to hate Cross stating that Cross isnot a sequel to Trigger. The answer is simple...Trigger, Radical Dreamers and Cross.
This is because if you don't play the game in a specific way, once you reach the point where you fight Time Devourer, you get booted straight to the credits. 14 year old me was so extremely frustrated by this that I've hated Chrono Cross (and have never played it again since). But seeing this recap certainly made me nostalgic and wanting to finish the game "for real" this time.
Wow....I think I need to replay this game sometime, as I either forgot or for some reason, missed that Kid and Schala were connected. My only issue with Chrono Cross are some of the bosses, some of them would act effectively as massive roadblocks for me, looking at you Dario & Garai. The game I feel is a good sequel to Chrono Trigger, hell, I believe it is a good ending to the series, this game, so much awesome!
Wow... 9 year old me was NOT ready for all of that, the only part I can say i understood from my first playthrough was how FATE really had everyone playing out how it should've... Past that I was just mesmerized by the beauty that was Chrono Cross. Thankyou for explaining this so well!
Young me before getting the strategy guide "yeah, they are gonna force Kid onto my team. I guess I have no choice" and then later me "WHAT?!? I could have totally chosen to NOT allow her to travel with me?!?!? THAT'S CRAZY COOL"
Wow, I do not think that I, in no way, had the full scope of this game when I initially played it. All I really remembered about this game is that there were a ton of characters to collect, awesome techs, multiple dimensions, Surge/Lynx personal story, that Kid was an ancient princes, and going to that future island to fight FATE. I also remember enjoying the game so much.
I remember playing this and remembering parts of this story, but even at 15 or whatever, I don't think I could fully grasp this. Not to mention aren't there like 11+ endings? Insanity.
I just finished playing the Switch rerelease. I'm a huge fan of the original SNES Chrono Trigger, but never played the sequel until now. This game's plot could get super confusing at times, so thanks for this video to help me digest just what was hoping on, particularly with the game's backstory.
Haha I was curious how you would handle that exposition dump at the end there! Well done! The story is convoluted, it would have been better to weave the exposition into the narrative of the story instead of "this is what happened. Let's save schala." Either way still one of my favorite games of all time 😊
Amazing video, must have taken a while to summarize the whole plot...imagine to develop it! Any idea of how long did the development take, how many ppl were involved and what was its cost?
Chrono Cross is my all time favourite game. I remember the first time my uncle gave me a joint, I ate all my little cousins’ Halloween candy and played chrono cross for 6 hours. Happy days.
The cool thing about chrono cross is half of this review could be told different ways. At each big decision you can choose your own path. You don’t have to help Kid from her poison. You don’t have to join up with Glenn, etc. Each path or character you choose, you’re missing out on two other characters. Amazing game.
Are you intent on doing Chrono Trigger or even Radical Dreamers? I love this recap series because it helps me to show the stories I love to people I love who don't play video games.
Who's here after the remaster/enhanced version/version up/whatever it shall be called? So, as a kid in the 90s, like all PAL regions, Australia never got this game. I remember living vicariously through mmagazine, almost nostalgic for a game of never played. (Played trigger though!) It was the same with Xenogears. Many, Many years later I set up emulation. But it didn't feel the same and life was super busy and I looked at the landscape of games and tons if shit getting remade or remasters and thought "surely one day chrono cross and Xenogears has to see the light of day in pal regions" ....so I held off on emulation. Fast foward....ANOTHER 10 years...it finally came. It finally fucking came. There were moments in the narrative I'm like "I dunno if this is gonna pay off or not..." Then the shit absolutely hits the fan plot wise. Just finished it 2 days ago. It was so worth it. It felt like a 20 something game in the making. Straight away I was able to put myself in the classic Squaresoft mindset. Kinda surreal experience. Now to wait for Xenogears, which I've probably got more hope than ever now in it getting a remaster. In fact I hope this does well enough it shows square there IS a hunger for people to play these games on modern hardware. Great video mate. It helped me fill in some points in the absolute dump truck of exposition toward the end. Now to wait, hopefully less than 10 years for Xenogears.
I remember playing this when I was young. At the time I barely understood the battle system let alone the story, if I had....my mind would have melted trying to keep up with it all.
From 0:00 to 7:50: "Well, that's interesting, a little complex but nothing too complicated so far" After 13:00: "Well, this is somewhat complicated but still understandable" After 17:00: "Dafuq is happening?" After 22:00 till the end: "What the fuck is this shit?!!"
There’s something that doesn’t make sense I understand the whole traveling back in time and changing something in the past affects the future . but Serge being alive or dead, shouldn’t affect the future at all he was literally born after Lavos was killed in the future meaning his death or being alive, shouldn’t affect the world at all.I now Serge a special child, that has the power of the cold flame, which is a part of Lavos what that doesn’t make sense how was him existing affecting the future exactly? I think the writers just wrote this, but didn’t think about about how time travel works or how this affects the main character and just making it up as they go It has to make some sense.
omg JRPG plots are SO convoluted. Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts III, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns, Chrono Cross, Lost Odyssey. I'm going to look up Xenogears plot after this, expecting to be equally convoluted lol.
I played this game in May 2019 but I've realized that I didn't properly play it. I ignored all the elements part of the battle system and didn't really understand the story. I need to replay this one day from scratch.
blue x red yellow x green black x white When you are facing opposite element, you deal more damage and take more damage too. While the story actually simple....a story about casanova named Serge, flirting with 3 hot chicks ( Leena, Kid and Harley ) and refused to do polygamy. Killed Harley in process, made Leena as forever single lady and live together ever after with Kid. Amen to that.
That's one LOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGG & Complicated Story... can't believe I beat this game many moons ago, with 2 different endings, yet could not remember the story. Never the less a good (complicated storied) game.
there is no spiritual to this succeeding chrono trigger. it directly ties into the story. and people who think it didn't didn't actually play it also given her form i always thought harle was pronounced har-leh. as in harlequin
Man, I can't avoid feeling like this thing spoils everything you fought for in Chrono Trigger. You thought you saved the world? HA! Fuck that, I hate when games/movies/books/comics/whatever just... undo their happy endings just for the sake for drama and plot for a sequel.
I had a depressing impression left over but your video describing the ending it feels sweet now. yea I got the best ending but don't remmeber the details.well. I just recall being depressed like 6 years agp
Me for the first 90% of the game: "Huh like I gotta stop Lynx? or I am him, I guess? These dragons are good, yeah?" Me for the last 10%: "JEEZ WAIT WHAT...WHO...CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN...WAIT I WANT THE TEAR OR FLAME? OH SHARDS?!"
WAIT.. KID IS LUCCA'S ADOPTED DAUGHTER!!!!!!! SHE'S THE REAL DAUGHTER OF CHRONO AND MARLE!!!!!!!!!!🤯 But why does Lynx kills Lucca when LUCCA IS ALREADY SMART AND INVENTS ROBOTS FROM THE 1ST GAME?!!!
Only thing i dont really get is how can agents from a dead time line travel back in time to seek revenge on those who closed their time, if their timeline no longer exists? and I would also like to mention I dont think millions were murdered from that now gone timeline. I can understand the reasoning, but how can someone be murdered if they suddenly failed to exist in the first place. I know its semantics.
CT - "I'm going to break new ground in storytelling and character development." CC - "yo dawg I heard you like multiple characters, so we added 3 thousand. And every future AT ONCE! Are we cool now?!"
Though a tad late, a heartfelt Thank You to every sub that has helped this channel reach past the 40k mark. I sincerely appreciate the patience and enthusiam of the community that supports and shares every adventure in this RECAPitation journey. EDIT: Amazing how the main activity in the comments is arguing how to label the relationship for Chrono Cross to Chrono Trigger/Radical Dreamers. Spiritual Sequel? Non-linear Sequel? Not a Sequel? [I don't care, personally, its just another adventure to me, so don't try and drag me into this debate] Next RECAPitation will be: Suikoden 2
I fuckin love the music in this game! Especially the main theme. Although not as good as the o.g. chrono trigger theme chrono cross's gives me a distinct feeling of wonder. Marvelous
uptown710 with KH, I can easily summarize the entire story. An old man travels back in time and becomes a body snatcher to fight people with key shaped swords. How do I summarize this?
shizuwolf a boy sets out to realign the an divergent timeline created by heroes in the past. See. You can do that for any story medium. I’m talking about how you needed like 3 games to explain the stuff that was happening in the first game. Let’s be honest KHs story is sloppily told. The Trigger series may be complex, but everything you need to figure it out is in those 2 games.
So to summarize best: The story exists as a result from the defeat of Lavos in 1999, basically caused a split in space/time. In the 2300 AD Lavos destroyed alternate universe the Mother Brain or FATE controls events through time in both universes with a time travel device that can manipulate humans throughout history. So its the protagonist job to put an end to this add in some convolution and BAM.. Chrono Cross
I lived in Southeast Asia my entire life and enjoyed all the RPGs of my childhood - standing on top of them is the Chrono series, with Cross on top of it. While a lot of people hate it and are unbelievably baffled by it, I want to believe I fully understood its message and lore (consumed from Chrono Compendium). It is exhilarating, beautiful and unbelievably sublime. I felt every emotion of all the characters and grew to love them. I created head canons for each one character and somehow was able to connect to them in some way, shape or form. I say this is in my top 5 PSX JRPG, with Final Fantasy Tactics, Chrono Trigger, FF8 and Legend of Legaia being my personal choices. They made my life so much better. They educated me better, helped me grow to the great values of honor and fortitude while helping me deal with my personal demons as both a child bullied at school with a growing existential crisis. I will always stand by Chrono Cross and believe that, together with Chrono Trigger, that it is the best IP I would ever have played my entire life.
Dude, have you seen his drakengard video? Man's a genius. I think after Star Ocean 2, he has recapped all of my favorite RPGs. He does some outstanding work.
Holy crap! I've played this when i was 9 years old and loved it! I've replayed again last year(now i'm 25 y.o.) and it was a BLAST! A superman punch right on my nostalgia. This is probably one of the best games ever made in the history of videogame; The music, the plot, EVERYTHING. Congrats on nailing everything right, you did an AWESOME job, and gained a new sub. Love from Brazil!
It's one of those games where, after researching it for hours, I finally understand it for all of a few days. Then I get confused again and need to research again.
I love this game. I was lucky enough to play this before I learned it was actually a sorta-sequel, and thus was able to judge it on it's own merits before I played Trigger, resolving the only big issue I had as a kid with CC, being the CT specific plot elements. I hear a lot of people say that it "ruined the heroes accomplishments" by making them seem like a bad thing. But I always knew (speaking about real life here) that actions have consequences that people really don't and/or can't predict. Looking back on them both, I recognized the problem of what happens to timelines that just end suddenly and found it a compelling plot point that a lot of time travel stories don't really explore. I think this game is a nice example of writers making a sequel story work when they clearly weren't planning ahead of time for there to be a sequel to the first game.
I played this game before Trigger as well, but even at face value, the story for me was terrible. After playing chrono trigger, the gameplay feels to slow and irrelevant to slog through.
Wow,so amazing,the story is so convoluted but it is still in my top 5 games of all time,absolute perfection. Well done recapitation, you really explained everything as it is,a bit difficult to understand everything right away but this is exactly what modern RPG games are missing,a story that sucks you right in and even when it is finished makes you question everything :)
I read this comment around the 5 minute mark and was like nah it wasnt that convoluted was it? about 15 minutes later: WTF I'm so confused. I'm sure the more complex details went right over my head those many years ago.
I’m glad to see someone cover this game more fully. Interestingly enough you can actually skip two boss battles in this game. The first is by going through the volcano without going to the Water Dragon Isle (you don’t actually NEED to freeze the lava to make it through, but it’s suggested) and the second is you can skip fighting the Black Dragon.
I wanted to love this game as much as I do Chrono Trigger. I really did. CT did multiple time paths well, and managed to weave discarded timelines in to a well stated, cohesive narrative. CC is more like what happens when someone's hyperactive preteen writes fan fiction, and lets her equally unmedicated ADD friend edit it.
Recapitation for Lunar and Grandia would be great. I actually started Lunar for my fiancee because an awesome recap wasn't available. (Then again, don't want to ruin my excuse to play more games.)
one of the most unnecessarily hated games ever. I feel it would have been in the legendary games category if it didbt have "Chrono" in the game title. But it actually connected the games well...even if it wasn't a direct sequel with the same cast. Also, imo it has the best soundtrack ever. Mitsuda even pulled from it in some sections of xenoblade chronicles 2. Morytha has an eerily similar mood/sound to the dead sea
My problem with it was stomping all over the plot and feel of Chrono Trigger. CT's ending deliberately made sport of the "time travel is dangerous and will ruin everything" cliche, which fit an overall more cheerful and happy go lucky tone... then CC turned around and embraced the cliche and gloom fully, undercutting the heroes and their accomplishments. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't really have animus towards CC, and probably even enjoy a lot of it.. but because of the way they did it I do, and still would like a proper CT sequel that fit the original's plot and tone. It was one of the best games ever made.
Everything you describe is seen through the dark lens of Chrono Cross. Most were there for the heroes to correct as part of the uplifting nature. Other unhappy events were added to later versions of CT to tie into the upcoming CC storyline. If not outright retcons, many folks like myself noticed the stark contrast to the tone of the original. And Frog? He's my favorite character, with an epic and uplifting theme (on my playlist for decades)! More fairy tale territory than gloomy.^^ And as for your bitterness at killing further sequels... I can empathize but not take credit, as I wasn't discussing CT/CC with anyone but my brother at the time. I feel it might better be directed at Square for failing to deliver a game that kept with the original's tone - and even taking legal action against awesome fan projects aiming to recreate that greatness, and would've really fired up the fanbase.
Taikaru You speak as if you're living in the fantasies you've built within your own mind. Time to swallow pride and face facts, if CT was remade with today's technology you'd shit all over it because you'd see how truly grim the events and story were/was. But due to cart limitations you got a game in a cartoonish art style. CC absolutely appreciated and expanded the lore of the game before it, but the tone was just more realistic because it was made further down the line where technology could showcase it better. Sorry to say, but the poster above you is 110% correct, delusional people like you who blinded themselves to facts and complain due to personal bias are the reason the series did die. You may not have directly contributed, but your mindset is what did. Grow up my man.
Much opinion. Very hostility. Wow~ You didn't even try to refute a single point I made. Were the events Pepe refers to not either A) Overcome by the heroes of CT as part of their triumph, or B) Added to later versions specifically to tie into Chrono Cross? And isn't it implausible heroes who bested every great foe through history, including death itself and the most powerful of all time (literally) would succumb to a mere human invasion? (A Porre one at that - see it's right in the name. :D To argue whether a disappointed mindset or the product that caused that disappointment is to blame for lack of sequels is the definition of a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" question. In any case, I eagerly contributed to sales figures for both games. But as I said, despite your hostility, as a huge fan of Xenogears/Saga and Suikoden, I truly empathize with grief over the lack of sequels for ones' favorite stories. Wouldn't wish that on anyone even if I wasn't a fan of the direction those sequels took the story.
honestly, i've never liked the body swapping thing in any story, not DBZ and not here, and you spend more of the game as lynx then as surge, then you find out it was your own dad who stole your body, a very convulted story and i just lost interest fairly quickly. also, the dimension switching thing was okay, but it wasn't time travel, which is what made CT great. When i heard it was a sequal to CT, i thought, sweet, i'dlove to travel through time once more, but to see what become of chrono and marle sucked, that there were only two worlds with a lot of depth that was hidden and hard to understand..... I may give the game another try after watching this vid, but we didn't get the RD novel, so coming from CT to CC was a slap in the face or a splash of cold water, not what you expect or want, honestly
