Better cast of characters, for one thing. I can understand not liking Leena, or the size of the cast, but Tsukuyomi/Harle trounces on almost every other character in a Square game. I think there's more character in the cast, as a whole, and the silly/irreverent characters are less prominently featured. As for Trigger's cast, I think it's a joke. I thought Magus was cool when I was a pre-teen, and Lucca is all right (although I don't like her design much) but I have never hated a silent protagonist more than that bum, Chrono. (He isn't silent, but Randy came really close.) Schala might be the only CT character I care about, which is fitting because 12K BC is the only time period in the game that I actually like. Every other period makes me feel the irritation of playing through them, just in thinking about it. (Even 12K BC has some shitty spots, though.)Xeogred wrote:I'm not challenging you here, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on Cross. I was a big fan of it growing up, but once the internet hit that never seemed to be anyone else experience and years later it's still the same case.pierrot wrote:I would surely hate to be a person who is unable to acknowledge how much better Cross is than Trigger.
Cross has more meaningful antagonists. I much prefer the world of Chrono Cross. Artistically speaking, Trigger can almost hold its own with Cross (perhaps I would agree that Trigger has held up a bit better graphically) but the music and art design in Cross are simply superlative.
Where it stops even being a competition is in combat. Cross has so much more going for it, in its battle system. Its mechanics are much more complicated, that's for sure, but getting a handle on the nuances of it is very rewarding. The different attack levels have corresponding hit ratios that are boosted with successive hits, giving more weight to the decision of what attack level to choose. Even more so because it boosts a character's element level, in battle, but one still has to consider stamina. At max stamina, one could choose to do two level-1 attacks, a level-2, and then a level-3 attack (the safest combination, in terms of hit percentage) followed by a level-7 element, which would surely do a bunch of damage, but then leave the character at a disadvantage because he's now sitting at approximately (negative)6.0 stamina. Oh, but wait, what happens if in this carefully planned string of attacks, one of the level-1 attacks misses? Well, the player might have to adjust his combat strategy. This isn't even mentioning the element color field. By comparison, what happens in Chrono Trigger: wait for an ATB bar to fill up, and select "attack"; maybe throw out a combo tech. Woo--. How will I ever contain my excitement--.
I enjoy Satchel's thoughts on Chrono Cross. Perhaps others will, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iall_4SJkTQ
I have also played all three--only last year, even. While Soul Blazer and Terranigma were both great, Gaia was easily the worst of the bunch. It certainly wasn't good, in my opinion, but I've been over that before, rather recently.Betagam7 wrote:Unlike some of the people claiming it should be ditched for a game they've only heard about (Terranigma), I've played all 3 of the Blazer trilogy to completion and, while Illusion of Time (as I knew it) was by the far the most linear it also had the richest, most imaginative and genuinely moving storyline of any game I played in the 16 bit era.
There's a reason that I've replayed Trigger many times, and always bogged down in replays of Cross. However, I will acknowledge that Cross is a good, perhaps even excellent game, but as a CT sequel it's absolutely terrible. I almost wish they hadn't tried to tie it into the series and made it a standalone game. It's very nearly that as it is, with a few spits in the face to CT fans plot-wise.