Review of Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition, a remaster of the classic PlayStation

Among the most beloved JRPGs of the PlayStation era is undoubtedly Chrono Cross, at least the word-famous Chrono Cross: at the time – it was 2000 – it was one of the Japanese games that Square had localized exclusively for the game. The American market and it got here only through expensive imports or cheaper… alleyways, let’s call them that. The name of another achievement, such as Chrono Cross, Legend of Mana, or Xenogears, was surrounded by an air of mystery and seriousness; They were games that most people wanted but couldn’t have, and over time we began to remember their virtues rather than their faults. Now that the JRPG has cleared customs en masse, it was only a matter of time before that. Square Enix decided to reorder this pearl of the past as well.

But what are these Radical Dreamers they chose as the caption? And what does the legendary Chrono Trigger have to do with it? Read on for ours Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition review If you want to know more, and best of all, if this remastered is worth buying.

Chrono Trigger does not fit

Chrono Cross has a very strange occurrence that Square Enix – also in Italian – has also localized Radical Dreamers, but which we can now fully understand. Accessible from the main menu by selecting the item Radical Dreamers – Le Trésor Interdit, this interactive textual adventure dates back to 1996 and is the will of Masato Kato, who wrote the story of Chrono Trigger, to unravel some of the subplots left open in the legendary JRPG for the SNES. just output satellite view (a peripheral for the SNES limited to Japan only) as this strange narrative experiment tells a much darker and more mature story linked to Chrono Trigger, the player is called upon to make some choices to continue reading Yasunori Mitsuda’s notes.

unprecedented italian localizationFluent and modern, it translates original Japanese prose that chronicles the adventures of three thieves struggling with a work connected to the Chrono Trigger narrative. Kato’s script called Radical Dreamers spurred Square to finance a new playset in the Chrono Trigger universe. There was one problem, though, and that was that most of the original creators were not interested in the project, including Yoshinori Kitase, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, and Nobuo Uematsu. Therefore, it was decided to carry it from a different perspective, namely as a crossover sequel: the story is connected with Chrono Trigger, but stands on its own and focuses on an entirely new cast of heroes. The new script contradicts Radical Dreamers in several places, so Kato resigned from Satellaview’s title to mark it as a sort of “what if” story set in an alternate universe.

Actually, Radical Dreamers – Le Trésor Interdit useless. It’s a gem Square Enix found but adds practically nothing to the package and would perhaps be better off replacing with Chrono Trigger in a potential build. Does this mean you have to play Chrono Trigger to understand the Chrono Cross narrative? Absolutely not, but it helps. In fact, Kato takes the protagonists of the Radical Dreamers – Serge and the Kid – and builds around them a longer and more complex story that maintains its autonomy while remaining in deep contact with that of Chrono Trigger. But this time it’s not about time travel, alternative facts.

Unfortunately, not everything is going in the right direction because Chrono Cross bases its narrative on gameplay that allows you to recruit more than one person. forty playable characters. It follows that only some find sufficient scope for characterization: the narrative draws the focus of attention to the main protagonists, who sacrifice a large number of supporting actors who do not shine for charisma.

Chrono Cross is first and foremost a title poorly balanced in terms of tones and atmospheres. Chrono Trigger was decidedly more carefree thanks to character design entrusted to Dragon Ball’s Akira Toriyama, who was replaced by Nobuteru Yuki in Chrono Cross. In Chrono Cross, jokes often seem forced and don’t help form a bond with many of the characters. Fortunately, the story hits very high climaxes in memorable scenes, but even there the credit is first and foremost in the outstanding soundtrack beautifully remastered in this The Radical Dreamers Edition by Yasunori Mitsuda. The Italian localization, which goes directly from the Japanese, greatly improves the 2000’s English translation of a scenario that was perhaps too cold and detached, but it certainly can’t solve the problems upstream.

Oddities and remasters

Chrono Cross is a fairly ordinary JRPG in build, alternating exploration and interaction with canonical turn-based Final Fantasy-style combat with NPCs. The combat system is quite specific and not exactly intuitive. Basically, each character is associated with a color that represents the natural elements, but elements they are also spells and fighting techniques, skills that must be found or learned and then placed in individual grids. The composition of these grids determines the inclinations of each character, and the synergy between the strength of an item and the position we assign to it on the grid guarantees an interesting variety that pushes us to experiment with various characters without fossilizing in a particular suit. .

It’s an interesting system, but it’s a bit convoluted and doesn’t get assimilated as quickly as it should, plus a number of variables come into play – for examplefield effectaffecting the strength of skills or normal attacks defined by intensity and accuracy – complicating everything.

So it’s no surprise that Square Enix packs a host of benefits in this The Radical Dreamers Edition. Firstly, it is possible to completely disable the fight: enemies appear on the screen, but activating this function will not enter the fight, even if you come into contact with them. It makes strange sense, because the Chrono Cross doesn’t actually follow a traditional progression pattern; none experience points or levels and parameters increase randomly at the end of fights, but within certain limits unlocked by defeating various bosses. In this way, it is the progression itself, involving players who can come more or less prepared for difficult confrontations, but never gain a clear advantage.

As a good measure, the remastered also introduces a feature that makes battles even easier for those who just want to enjoy the story without spending too much time behind the battle system.

These are benefits that players who have already purchased Square Enix remasters should know pretty well. In that sense, Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is pretty mundane: we have a wide variety of viewing options, autosave, a feature to speed up or slow down the game as you wish, as well as the ability. to restore the original graphics. We have to admit that Square Enix has done better than some of its previous remasters – not just by changing the definition. polygonal modelsalso its builds and animations are somewhat similar to what happened with Final Fantasy VIII Remastered.

Characters and monsters are now much more pleasing to the eye. fluidity It stays roughly the same, and you can choose between original and brand new portraits that are even smoother and better defined. The problems are the usual ones: a hidden gap between high-definition 3D models and beautiful scenarios – but this is largely solved by a filter that smudges the colors and makes the effect less alienating – and the unfortunate resolution of the unfortunate resolution. ancients. kinematics in computer graphics.