Axe

CWs for Chrono Cross: child abuse, sexual harassment, burning alive, mind control.

Maybe the boldest and most tender RPG produced at Square pre- and post-merger, Chrono Cross is a pastoral re-phrasing of Chrono Trigger's thesis on the will of the individual. Where Trigger gives you buckets of endings to fulfil the endless possibility of time travel and the player's will as represented by our avatar Crono, Chrono Cross says you must live in society. Every day may feel like you're working with systems beyond your individual control which you don't yet understand, but the people you surround yourself with, how you order the tasks set before you, and who you share collective memory with create a bold and irreplaceable picture of life. Simply designing a vibrant world and filling it with life in animation and visionary approaches to pre-rendered backgrounds grants Chrono Cross a precious vitality I've always wished could poke through in Trigger.

The combat system is a little dinky and it's unbelievable that this game still runs like dog shit on its modern ports, but most video games to this day wish they could land their fantasy allegory for modern society like this game does so effortlessly. There's not really that much nuance because it just doesn't need it! Living in society has boundaries and structures that can hurt and help us and it's in our power to band together and do something about the ones that harm, send tweet.