Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition: Specifications
Platforms: PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Price: $20
Release date: April 8, 2022
Gender: japanese role playing game
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is one of those remakes that accomplishes exactly what it set out to do, and not much else. Square Enix wanted to give their classic JRPG a fresh coat of paint and make it compatible with modern consoles, and that’s exactly what you can expect from The Radical Dreamers Edition. Now you can play Chrono Cross on PS4, Xbox One or Nintendo Switch, with higher resolution graphics than you remember. If that’s worth $20 to you, then The Radical Dreamers Edition is an easy recommendation.
On the other hand, there is definitely a feeling that Square Enix could have done more with the source material. The redone graphics are a bit confusing, the Radical Dreamers add-on is a pretty special experience, and the original game feels a lot more convoluted and arbitrary than you remember. You need to play Chrono Cross at least three times to get the “full” experience. If you’ve already done so, The Radical Dreamers doesn’t give you much incentive to dive back in.
While Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers is a satisfying remaster, it has little to offer players who’ve played their fill of the original. Read on for our full edition of Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers.
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition review: Gameplay
If you played Chrono Cross when it debuted on the PS1 in 2000, then you are already familiar with 99% of the game in Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition. If not: Chrono Cross is a Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) that acts as an indirect sequel to Chrono Trigger. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which allows you to travel through time, Chrono Cross allows you to traverse parallel dimensions.
You take control of Serge: an ordinary teenager from an island town, who finds himself involved in an amazing adventure. The overall setup is somewhat traditional for JRPGs. You’ll travel from town to town and dungeon to dungeon, fighting a variety of standard enemies and powerful bosses along the way. You’ll collect new spells and equipment as you go, and improve your stats by fighting enemies and leveling up. Expect some branching narrative options, environmental puzzles, and elaborate side quests as you go.
At first glance, the combat in Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers is pretty typical turn-based. You and your enemies take turns attacking, dealing damage with physical attacks and magic spells. But instead of just attacking your enemies, Chrono Cross employs a percentage-based scheme. Powerful attacks are unlikely to connect early on, but you can increase your chances of success by landing weak attacks in succession. This creates a satisfying risk-reward system that encourages you to be smart and bold.
After connecting with enough physical attacks, you can also perform powerful magic. Each spell has a color element (red for fire, blue for water, etc.), and each color influences the battlefield. For example: cast three green spells in a row, and the green spells will become much more powerful, both for you and your enemies. This makes for tense and interesting battles, as empowering yourself often means empowering your enemies, and vice versa.
The problem with Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers is that the game can feel a bit slow and repetitive by modern standards. Most of the battles feel trivial and only give medium stat boosts; Boss fights are the only way to level up. The environments are usually small and a bit empty, with a lot of tedious backtracking if you want to find all of the optional treasure chests.
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition review: History
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition tells the story of Serge: an unassuming island boy who accidentally steps through the barrier between two parallel dimensions. In this other world, Serge died in infancy, and the entire setting feels subtly different as a result. She teams up with a rogue thief named Kid, who wants Serge to help her search for valuable treasure. From there, the story becomes a dimension-hopping adventure about friendship, self-perception, and free will, complete with one of the best mid-game twists in the entire genre.
One thing that sets Chrono Cross apart from many other JRPGs is its large and eclectic cast of characters. You can recruit 45 different characters, although doing so will require three games. The cast contains some fascinating personalities, from the noble knight Glenn to the headstrong blacksmith Zappa and the patient childhood friend Leena.
On the other hand, it also contains some real flaws. Before playing The Radical Dreamers Edition, I thought long and hard about the party members I remembered from the original game, only coming up with about a dozen. The requirements for recruiting party members are also strict and sometimes a bit absurd. You can have a whole party playing normally, but if you want specific characters, you’ll almost certainly need to start with a walkthrough in hand.
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition review: New features
There aren’t too many new features in Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition. Players can now make battles a little easier, with slow, fast forward, auto battle, and battle boost options. The remastered character models and backgrounds are generally pretty, though there’s just no way to make a 20-year-old game look perfect on modern hardware.
The biggest addition, however, is the Radical Dreamers mode. This text adventure is a curious side story in the Chrono series, previously only available through fan translations. It’s an interesting precursor to Chrono Cross, telling a similar story in a very different format. Some gamers will enjoy the crisp writing and offbeat structure, but it’s a lot of text for a relatively small game.
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition: images and sound
Square Enix redid the character models and tweaked the backgrounds for Chrono Cross: The Remastered Edition. The results are generally pleasing, with distinctive designs, vibrant colors, and varied settings. However, the updates have also resulted in some sticking points. Character animations don’t always work well at the highest frame rates in the game, resulting in jerky movements, especially during battles. Backgrounds and character models sometimes appear incongruous, as characters are much sharper and more in focus than the occasionally blurry, pre-rendered backgrounds. There are also some small but noticeable graphical glitches, like black dots appearing in the background.
The soundtrack, on the other hand, is and always has been a beauty. Chrono Cross is one of the gold standards in JRPG music, with an ambitious and soulful range of tracks, from tense battle themes to somber exploration melodies. A Celtic influence ties the soundtrack together thematically, and it might just stick in your head for another 20 years.
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition: Verdict
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is a decent remastering of a great game. It doesn’t add much, but it makes a classic title accessible on modern hardware. That, in itself, is a worthwhile goal.
On the other hand, the game is also a reminder that our nostalgia for old games is often mostly based on how they made us feel. I loved Chrono Cross for its clever gameplay, ambitious story, and awesome music. However, reviewing the game today, the gameplay can get tiresome, and the story hides some of its best characters behind artificial obstacles. (However, the soundtrack is still legitimately excellent.)
If you’ve never played Chrono Cross before, The Radical Dreamers Edition is the way to play it. But if so, I would think carefully if you really want to play it again or just remember your good memories.
Reference-www.tomsguide.com