It also re-uses motifs to great effect — for example, the theme song for your home village is different in Another World than it is in the Home World; it's a slower arrangement, but the melody is nearly the same. Loyal fans of Chrono Trigger can even pick up some of that game's musical motifs sprinkled around the world of Chrono Cross. But my favorite thing about Chrono Cross is the ocean. The visual direction for the game is very strong, very considered; the adventure is distributed across a raw, wild land dug into a massive ocean.
There are jewel-green forests hung with eerie phosphorescence, and magma-veined mountains that smolder with a glowing heat you can nearly feel, but the sea is everywhere in this game. From some vantages it's royal and endless, and in others it's glittering shallows, marine green, resting docile around the villages that have built themselves into it, that coexist with it.
Exploring the world of Chrono Cross is a delight of bright corals, of mysterious foliage that arches high over swamplands like the spine of a fish, and of quiet white sands where you can buy some silence, alone with the sighing of the waves. It's funny, then, that one of the least formulaic JRPGs I can think of — and truly, one of my very favorites — went so overlooked. The ocean is such a multifaceted character; it has the capacity for incredible gravity and massive destruction just as it has for beauty and stillness, for teeming life.
The ocean is inevitable, and it's the perfect thematic partner for a story about loss of self, loss of identity. As the player you're trying to sort out the game world, accomplish its quest, and collect its manifold recruitable party members a calling card of Chrono Cross is that there are many-many-many of them, some more interesting than others.
But all the while, the sea doesn't let you forget that you're a young, silent boy who has lost himself in the face of forces much more overwhelming and inexorable than he knows how to address. Because JRPGs are games about gaining levels and better equipment and about gaining progressive control over where you can travel in a massive world, the "growing up" narrative arc is pretty standard; they end up being stories about children who leave home and find their inner strength as they face a great evil.
Final Fantasy games usually employ political adversaries that then open up into larger, spiritual or god-like ones. You could even read into it the archetypal story of finding your value system in the context of your community, and later your faith in things greater, as you form bonds with others and learn more about the world.
But Chrono Cross is special. That it contains so many disparate and seemingly-random recruitable party members — though a few are key to the story — seems to be considered by gamers to be a weakness of the game, but narratively it's effective, enhancing the player's empathy for Serge's isolation.
Each person has his or her own goals; the game contains no grand messages on love and friendship and unity. It isn't particularly directed, either, with rewards sometimes to be found for simply exploring areas on one's own. The twentieth anniversary of Chrono Trigger is a reminder of the power of creative restraint. Chrono Trigger's design philosophy is the antithesis of sprawling, convoluted epics like Final Fantasy 7 and Xenogears. Largely because of this discipline, it has aged far better than most console RPGs and is rightly remembered as one of the high watermarks of Japanese game development.
Here are five reasons you should revisit this marvelous classic. Characters have only a handful of abilities and equipment slots, and the use of each is carefully tailored with potential interactions in mind. Each of the seven adventurers has a very distinct look and ability set, and party composition greatly affects how you approach encounters.
While the world itself is sprawling, most individual zones and dungeons are carefully constructed to be explored in digestible portions without a lot of frustrating backtracking or aimless wandering.
Combat is extremely fast and very rewarding. A simple positioning system encourages variety in attack choices, and party members can coordinate to deliver devastating combos. Your handful of abilities are almost all useful, and some are delightfully flavorful. No random encounters pad the story. The enemies in Chrono Trigger are delightfully flavorful, colorful, and entertaining monster designs that are a feast for the eyes.
The major villains are sympathetic and interesting characters with comprehensible motivations. Show mercy to your archenemy after your final encounter, and he joins your party as an aloof, grumpy, and extraordinarily powerful ally who doesn't really like you very much. It looks like someone made it in RPG maker. Chris is the captain of the good ship AllGamers, which would explain everything you're seeing here. Join Our Newsletter and keep up to date on the latest from HyperX.
We promise to handle your information in line with our privacy policy. This site uses cookies to provide enhanced features and functionality.
By using the site, you are consenting to this. Read more about our cookie policy. February 28 Chris Higgins Editor-in-Chief. Retro Feature Chrono Trigger. Playstation Products Shop Now. Keyboards Shop Now.
0コメント