Chrono Cross

Chrono Cross (Japaneseクロノ·クロス, Kurono Kurosu ) is a video game company Squaresoft (now Square Enix ). It is attributed to the genre of role playing. It was released in 1999 in Japan and 2000 in the United States for the Sony Playstation as the successor of the game Chrono Trigger.

General

In 1996 for the Japanese Satellaview add-on for Nintendo's Super Famicom (known in Europe as the SNES known) published an illustrated text adventure called Radical Dreamers, based on its history Chrono Cross. Some parts of the story of Radical Dreamers were incorporated into Chrono Cross, but Chrono Cross may not be seen as an extension or remake, since some parts of the story are very different.

How much of the published at the time of Squaresoft games (such as, for example, Parasite Eve, Brave Fencer Musashi, Legend of Mana or Xenogears ) was also not released Chrono Cross in Europe. The background is probably to be sought in the art: The game includes various characters, which partly have a different dialect. For the U.S. version of the game a dialect generator has been programmed which, due to the relatively simple English grammar, for each character allowed an individual dialect. This, in part, that the German dialects have very different grammars, and the resulting economic aspects of a German translation, only the location and subsequently the European introduction was dropped.

Chrono Cross is the sequel to the game Chrono Trigger for the SNES, but another team working on the game than Chrono Trigger. The character design was designed by Nobuteru Yūki, for the music recorded Yasunori Mitsuda responsible.

In the U.S., the game has sold well, but sales in Japan were disappointing.

History

The story in Chrono Cross takes place in the fictional El Nido Archipelago and acts of Serge, who ten years earlier, should really have drowned, but was saved by a mysterious power from it. Through this incident, the world split into two parallel dimensions; in one dimension ( Homeworld ) he survives and lives on ten years before the game begins, in the other dimension ( Another World ) Serge drowned on a beach near his home town.

The story initially revolves around the lynx -like Lynx, which for the time being as the main enemy appears later, and later mainly by Serge (unconscious ) task, Princess Schalas to solve bond from the Time Devourer. The Time Devourer is a type of symbiont, which is derived from the main opponents of Chrono Trigger, Lavos and Schala, Princess of the magic kingdom Zeal, in an incident in selbigem to 12,000 BC. Millennia later discovered Belthasar, has been thrown by the same incident far through time and a former Guru of Zeal is that the Time Devourer will engulf the entire space-time. Then it sets an extremely complex chain of events in motion that conduct Serge on its way to merge with an artifact called Chrono Cross, the dimensions again to destroy the Time Devourer and free Schala.

Even if Chrono Cross uses many elements of Radical Dreamers, the stories of both games can not be brought into harmony. Therefore, the game designers decided that what happened in Radical Dreamers have indeed taken place, but plays than that in the Chrono Cross in another dimension. This is also in Chronopolis, one reflected by a failed experiment in the city time, indicated in the game, in which you can read on a computer. Chronopolis again monitored after the incident, the El Nido Archipelago, to prevent a time paradox, which would threaten the existence of Chronopolis in the future.

The most striking difference between Chrono Cross and Radical Dreamers lies in the absence of the character Magus, who played a major role in Chrono Trigger. While it was originally planned to integrate Magus into play, but the idea was dropped because the developer ersahen difficult to establish his story plausible addition to the other 44 characters.

The story is perceived by many in comparison to Chrono Trigger to be very complex. Read the Most dialogs in Chrono Cross have to be very precise to a large extent follow the story can, in contrast to Chrono Trigger, which runs very straight forward.

Game system

The game, similar to Final Fantasy, battles, which are shown and held in a separate screen, but fantasy parts are basically the opponents previously visible on the map, so do not happen to be in contrast to most Final.

The fights take place turn-based, it can be selected between easy, normal and heavy blows, the hit probability varies. After each successful hit, the element bar is expanding, with the element, the magic derivative of the game, can be summoned. There are no experience points, as usual in an RPG, but the property values ​​of the characters build up the fight for fight on, but within certain limits: In order to minimize excessive grinding, the strength of a character grows only up to a certain point at which it is necessary to overcome an important for the continuation of the story between opponents in order to expand the strength even further allowed.

Unusual is the relative weakness of hit points, with which some, sometimes even important intermediate opponents are provided. Instead, most powerful opponents are more likely to use that element system sent against the player, rather than simply absorb with bare mass of points shown by imaginary life force hit to hit. This is rather a player's strategic and tactical skill required than in many similar games, where all too often the player pure stamina and patience are demanded. Other features of the game system are the ways to be healed after combat automatically from its own pool of element and healing items, and may be of any fight, even against intermediate opponents flee.

Can be stored anywhere on the world map, or in locations of so-called Records of Fate. There has been added the possibility to select key items in certain places and to use, similar to the old adventure games. This leads to a level of interactivity that is missing in many console RPGs.

Characters

There are 44 playable characters (plus Serge ) in the game, which are each divided into six element categories. Each character has in turn two to three individual techniques that may be of some character combinations combined ( so-called Double or Triple Techs ). In some parts of the game, the relationships between the characters are revealed to each other.

"Chrono Break"

Square Enix was the end of 2001 Enter in a U.S. trademark with the name Chrono Break, which triggered speculation about a possible successor. On 12 November 2003, the registration was canceled again, but only in the USA. In Japan, Square Enix continues to hold the rights to the name. It is thought that Square Enix had probably planned a sequel to the Chrono Trigger team, it has, however, dropped due to time and financial reasons.