Once again, Square has done a superb job in releasing a game that I'm sure will be looked back on as an epic in the future. Chrono Cross is the long awaited sequel to Chrono Trigger, a game that has been within my top three favorite video games of all time since the day I first played it. The basic concept of Chrono Cross is based on a text based RPG named Radical Dreamers, released on something known as Satellaview, a SNES addon released only in Japan. But Chrono Cross is staggeringly different from the still background and pages upon pages of text of Radical Dreamers. Though still holding the name "Chrono" at the beginning of its title and including some things that would be considered time travel, you and your party do not do any time travel. And speaking of your party, it is huge. By the end of the game, you have what amounts to a small army on your hand, each with different traits and abilities. At times, I began to wonder why I just couldn't get my entire group of characters together and just storm the enemy with them. But, like in Chrono Trigger, you may only use three of your characters at a time.

The story begins by throwing you directly into some action. Your character, a boy named Serge, as well as two others, including a girl named Kid, step out of an elevator in a tower and have a short conversation. After running around through a fairly simple maze-like place and using this device that looks like a large black crystal with a stone keypad below it, you ascend via a "magical" elevator which sends you up to the top of the tower. After Kid asks you, in her well-written English accent if somthing is bothering you, your group approaches a door. When you go to open it, Serge gets a rush of images, most of which you cannot decipher at this time. At the end of it, the game fades into a Chrono Trigger like wake up scene. After putting up the blinds and talking to your mother, its time to explore your town, meet up with your girlfriend Leena and the game takes off from there with what I would call a tutorial type quest for three Kodomo Dragon scales.

The control and game play of Chrono Cross is quite good. From the main area maps, each button does something different. The X button lets you talk/examine things as well as confirm and scroll the text when prompted. The Square button goes to the key item use menu, which I will mention later on. The O button allows you to run when held in while you move and cancel when in a place where canceling is an option. Finally, the Triangle button takes you into the main menu screen. There is a main menu screen in which you can access your Status, Element, Equip, Item, Customization, and Save/Load menus. The status lets you look at your various characters, including seeing a 3d model of them with whichever weapon happens to be equipped.

All weapons look different in this game, by the way. In the Element menu, there are two options. The first lets you use disposable elements such as antidotes, which cure poison, and tablets, which heal HP. The other menu allows you to allocate your elements onto your characters. I will cover that and the element system shortly.

The Equip menu allows you to equip your various weapons, armors, and accessories on your characters. To get most weapons, armors, and helmet accessories, you must forge them at a blacksmith. This actually reminds me of Final Fantasy 8's system of collecting parts to upgrade weapons. What happens at the blacksmith is fairly simple. You collect various parts to the weapons, such as bone, copper, furs, leather, and fangs, for the most part from killing monsters. You also gain gold from that. You then go to the smith and select what you wish to forge and it will tell you what parts you need to forge it and how much the fee will be. You can select it, say yes, and after a clink sound, the item will be yours.

Aside from selling the various items like that, you may also disassemble them into their original parts. This can be very useful if you are upgrading your party's armor and are low on parts to do so with.

The next menu at the main menu screen is the Item menu, which allows you to look through your key items list. It both describes your key items and shows a picture of it. To use key items, which are reusable unless you use it on a person whom is supposed to have it used on them, you must be within talking/examining distance of said object and hit the square key on your controller and then select the item in question. The customize menu on the main menu screen allows you to change the various options such as the vibration function, switching controls between analog and digital, and selecting one of the various text window frames which you will find throughout the game, though it is not a necessity.

The save/load menu does just what it says it does, loading a saved game from anywhere in the game, outside battles, and saving the game anywhere on the world map or in special spinning pyramids known as "Records of Fate." Another menu that can be accessed once a key item known as the Tele-Porter, a small piece of "Deus Ex Machina" that Kid gives you when she joins your group. You can access it from the world map or from the "Record of Fate" and you may have a total of three characters in your party at a time, one of which must be Serge (Unless otherwise decided by the game).

The battle system is quite different from Chrono Trigger's. To begin with, there is the attack system. When you choose to attack, you have three options: Weak, Strong, and Fierce. There is also a percentage next to them, which dictates how likely you are to hit the enemy with each attack. As you attack, the more you hit, the more likely the percentages will get. The stronger the attack, the lower the initial percentage will be. It only ranges up to 99% likely, reinforcing the old fact that nothing is ever fully certain, although I personally have never missed at 99%.

You also have seven total stamina points which to attack with. Weak attacks take one stamina, strong attacks take two stamina, and fierce attacks take three stamina. You can divide your attacks however you wish. Further, in the customization menu of your main menu screen, there is a setting that will let the game automatically choose what it feels the best attack is, although you do not have to use it's selection when the option is activated. There is another option in the attack menu as well as the battle screen on a whole, called element.

The element system is this game's magic system, as well as the way one uses items that are traditionally covered in RPGs by items, such as antidotes. There are four types of elements: reusable, consumable, trap, and summoning. Reusable can be used once per battle (unless recharged by another element); consumables may also only be used once per battle, however, when used, you loose one of them. Trap elements allow you to trap higher level elements of each color, including summons, when the enemy uses it (all trap elements are also consumable.) Summon elements are the rarest elements and can be used to summon various beings, depending on the summon, only when the entire Field effect is it's color and only by characters that have the same elemental affiliation (Summons also cost 1 star point, which you can recharge by staying at a inn or sleeping elsewhere.)

You may have up to 99 total unallocated consumables and you may allocate up to 5 per slot on your characters. You allocate your elements via the main menu screen's element menu. Each character has a grid for their elements. These grids are different from character to character. There are 8 possible levels of grids and elements. There are elements that must be allocated in their stated level, and those who can be allocated to a lower or higher level. If you put an element on a level higher than already stated, it adds a +(number higher) to it. This means, that it has extra power added to it. The reverse is true if you put it lower than it's stated level. The number of levels you may put it + or - is determined by the second number that the element has listed after it's base level. The power with which your magic will attack is also determined by your character's Mag level.

The graphics of this game are beautiful, to say the least. The rendering of the characters on the various maps shows a hugely marked improvement from Square's first crack at Final Fantasy 7. The characters look slightly cartoon like at times, but then can also look very real. They used a similar system for most movies-type scenes as was done in Final Fantasy 8, being that the background and whatnot moves while the characters react. There are a few pre-rendered traditional FMVs, but surprisingly few, overall. They tend to occur at major events in the game. That is part of the reason why such a long and complicated game is only on two CDs instead of three or four.

The sound and especially the music were some of my favorite parts of Chrono Trigger, and they have done just as well in Chrono Cross. The music is one of the greatest parts of the game. I find myself at times in some games muting the game's music and putting on a CD or something. However, I didn't do so once in my hours and hours of playing Chrono Cross. I pray they release the soundtrack in the US so I don't have to import it when I buy it.

The game's sound is also quite good. From the clash of the swallow against an enemy to the chilling sound of walking over crushed bones, all the sounds are quite realistic (although I have not personally walked over crushed bones, I assume what they made was what it would sound like.).

Over all, Chrono Cross is quite a bit more than I ever expected. They even kept with Chrono Trigger's tradition and have many multiple endings from the sad and bittersweet to the strange and highly comedic. I expect this to be a favorite of mine for a long time to come. It also has terrific replay value, in part due to another Chrono Trigger tradition, the "New Game +" mode. I won't go into details on that, but I highly suggest you find out for yourself.

To give another example of how dedicated the people at Squaresoft were to this game, almost every character is written is a different, at times quite unique accent ranging from English to a cute baby talk type accent. Chrono Cross ties up many loose ends of Chrono Trigger, and makes an equal, or perhaps greater amount of loose ends that may definitely lead to another sequel, something I personally cannot wait for. Over all, I give this game a 93%.