Wow, what a game! Many people who have played and loved to death Chrono Trigger are quick to bash Chrono Cross, but this game is probably one of the best playstation RPG's out there. Chrono Cross is markedly different from its prequel, and is probably one of the most inovative RPG's to ever hit the market.

The storyline in Chrono Cross is much darker than that of Chrono Trigger. This game was made by many of the same people who made Xenogears, and you can definatly see its influence on the plot. The story may seem confusing at first, and this may be a turn off for some. This is a game that certainly needs to be played more than once to make sense of the plot.

However playing the game more than once is quite easy. This game uses a New Game+ feature allowing you to play through the game again with your original ending stats/items. This is necessary, as it is impossible to dop everything your first time through, you must make irreversable choices.

The battle system in this game shows the most departure from traditional RPG's. There is no ATB system or anything like that. Your characters, and enemies each have a 7 Stamina points at the start of each battle, they can attack for a loss of 1, 2, or 3 points at a time, or cast magic/techs for a loss of 7. As long as they have positive stamina points, they can keep using commands, when it reaches zero, another character or enemy will then have a turn. If another chareacter makes a move, everybody else's stamina will gain 1 point, allowing them to have a turn later. Magic is cast through the use of elements. All elements are equipped before battle, and are placed in a grid of x rows, and up to 8 collumns. Each collumn is labled by level 1 - 8. In battle, each physical attack you do raises the level of magic you can cast, and each spell lowers the level by the level of the spell cast. Also, one space in the Level 3, 5, and 7 collumns are reserved for each characters "techs", which are special moves that only that character can use. This game also doesn't use a traditional level up system, and battles aren't random, allowing a player to skip normal enemies, and not be punished.

The graphics and sound are also amazing. The music was written by Yasunori Mitsuda. It is themed well for the game's tropical atmosphere, and it also contains some remixes of songs from Chrono Trigger. The music is just perfect for the game. The one word to describe graphics is detail. The backgrounds, etc. are so incredebly detailed, for example, fight on the beach, you will see tidepools, look closely at the tidepools and you will see fish swimming. Whoever did these backdrops sure took there time to do it right.

So, overall, Chrono Cross is one of the best RPG's to come to North America, if you can, you should play it now.

Overall: 10/10

-- bennator0