The Silent Protagonist – Chrono Cross

Remember when Square made decent games? You know… back when Square Enix was Squaresoft? They made some awesome games back in the day such as Final Fantasy X, Chrono Trigger, Vagrant Story and… Chrono Cross.

Chrono Cross was released back in 2000, in the states and it never got a UK release. Unfortunately it still doesn’t have a release here, despite that it managed to jump onto the US PSN store last year.

It is possible to download it from the US store, but you need to use an American address, go to pcgamesupply and you can buy an American PSN gift card. This lets you download the game. Long winded or what? But at the end of the day you get to play one of Square’s last great games.

Anyways, what about the story? Well, you play as a silent protagonist, called Serge (or “Ben” in my case!) who lives in an ideal world with friends and a family. One day he slips into an alternate dimension. However, unaware that Serge has transported to this alternate dimension, he discovers that a child named Serge died ten years ago. So what originally starts off as a journey to unearth what the hell has happened to him eventually turns into a quest of epic proportions, in which Serge must save both worlds. Pretty cool, eh?

So, what are the characters like? Apart from super likeable there’s not much to say really. Oh yeah, wait a second, there’s like 45 recruitable characters and they all have different accents, which can make reading the text a pain, but it’s different and I like it! For instance, one character, Kid, has an Australian accent, while Poshul, a pink talking dog talks with a lisp. If you ever play the game, keep Poshul in your party at all times! Not for any plot purposes, but the text that comes out of her mouth is stupidly funny. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I was crying with laughter.

The game reminds me of Final Fantasy 8, in the field at least. You can have three characters in your party at any one time, which follow you about the field. There are random battles in the field, as with any JRPG. There are the usual kinds of commands, with the options being attack, magic, defend and run away.

If you use the attack command, your character has a choice of three attacks: a whack, a BANG and a WALLOP. Or in other words, a weak, normal or strong attack. The chance of hitting the enemy depends on a percentage which is displayed as the top being the weakest attack and the bottom being the strongest. This percentage increases every time an attack connects, therefore increasing your chance to hit the enemy.

If you use a spell, called an Element, your turn ends after the spell has been cast. There are a variety of elements, and the strength of the spell is determined by the Element Field Effect. The E.F.E. is depicted in an oval on the top left of the battle screen and the oval is divided into three segments. When you use an element, for instance Wind, one of the segments turns green. This effect increases the effect of the next wind based spell, while simultaneously decreasing the power of its counter element, Earth. If you manage to fill the E.F.E. with one element, it is possible to use a summoning spell… once you get one…

So, you’ve got a talking pink dog with a lisp, a German mad scientist, a parallel universe, two worlds to save, a ton of characters to recruit, and a whole lot of other stuff to do – what’s not to like? The only drawback of the game? It’s impossible to do everything in one play through. For instance if you’re a completionist and you want to get all the characters, expect to play the game three times. If you’ve got the time and patience, then by all means, feel free! Your first challenge is to get it, though…

Next time I’ll be taking a look at Capcom’s Upcoming Action RPG, “Remember Me.”

To Be Continued…