You can bet the moment you hear the word Chrono in a game name it's gonna be good. Well, Chrono Cross in all honesty is quite a mixed bag. I like it for it's gameplay, but it's story makes next to no sense at times.
So yes, Chrono Cross has an interesting battle system, akin to Xenogears with physical attacks, while usage of Elements is unique based on a grid system. It seems that the idea of making the elements opposite of one another is pretty lame, and also to just name them after the colors. It's also quite confusing to have different kinds of elements, the ones that are like consumable items, the ones that are like spells, the summons which are almost never gonna occur due to the field effects, and the trap ones that can be difficult to predict, yet the rewards for an actually successful trap may actually be worthwhile. Bosses can be tough to deal with, as can a few notable encounters like the Tragediennes. One thing that really was interesting was the fact that you can run from every single battle, which for the most part serves to be a recharge especially when bosses are concerned, but a recharge is a lot nicer than going into a fight screwed up and all.
So Chrono Cross has a huge cast of characters, almost half of a Suikoden cast. Here's the problem, a large chunk of that cast really doesn't have a whole lot of plot significance. Right off the bat, I can name Serge, Lynx, Kid, Harle, and the Acacia characters (Karsh, Marcy, Riddel, Zoah, Viper). That's one-fourth of the class that ties itself to the main plot. Everyone else? Not so much. Sure there's a few branching points, like getting Guile, Pierre, OR Nikki, or choosing to either neglect or save Kid which gets you three different characters for different playthroughs (Kid survives regardless). But what good is a bunny-dressed fighter girl or a spaceman* or a talking turnip, or a mermaid have to do apart from just being party members for certain places? And that leads us to what apparently is known as the "Accent System" which is as convoluted as it sounds. To give even the least relevant characters some sort of interesting thing by putting in basic text and giving in some random accent. So Kid is an Aussie, Irenes speaks with multiple umlauts, ZOAH IS ALWAYS SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME, and Turnip takes after Frog from the previous game with Ye Olde English speak. Really, this doesn't change how I see the characters and actually sort of makes them more annoying than they should be.
Am I fan of the main plot? Not really. The game apparently makes everything Serge's fault for simply existing. There's a world he stumbles in where he's actually supposed to be dead, literally just called Another World, in comparison to his own home. The Frozen Flame is just another lame MacGuffin, but it culminated in the only decent part of Chrono Cross's plot, which was the body switch. That switch manages to last the entire middle part of the game and was a nice way of showing just how nasty Lynx was, by communicating through Serge, the silent protagonist** who hasn't said a damn word the entire game. After all this, Serge finds new friends, only to be caught in so many plots that lead to ruin. Okay thanks Miguel, that was a huge plot dump which told me nothing and you end up dying with the rest of the Dead Sea. So Lynx is really a part of FATE, um what so defeating FATE does more damage now? What was the deal with Kid's whole past? Why are characters from Chrono Trigger, like Robo (Prometheus here) and Lucca killed? Why am I most mad at the character Belthasar more than any other one in this game? Even when Serge manages to do the ending just right (and I mean the GOOD ending too) there's still some things that really don't make a lot of sense and need better answers to.
So yes, I overrate this game for it's gameplay, but it's story and characters aren't really all that great. Sometimes, I pay no attention to the story just to focus on the gameplay, and for a game like this, that's not a bad idea.
*okay Starky actually has SOME connection to the plot in that he does give you a spaceship for the final part of the game, but other than that Starky really doesn't provide much.
**that's literally, LITERALLY his title in game. Silent Protagonist.
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