Chrono Cross Remaster and Radical Dreamers Localization Announced!

[trig]

Listen to the way this song ends so perfectly ♥

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL3YsNg9NVU

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

So THIS is the Celtic song that was talked about so long ago in the early leak information.

Gorgeous song. I love the hints to the Arni Village theme. This actually hypes me up. I was excited about the remake before, but sort of apathetic due to the lack of new content. Even if it's just new audio, this is what I needed to really get excited.

I have no idea how these songs will be implemented, though, haha... When/where/how?!

[Ema]

Heard talk that the new songs aren’t gonna be in the game and are only part of a vinyl album release?

[Vehek]

There's been a huge uproar online about there not being a soundtrack-switching option, but yes, those songs aren't part of regular gameplay in any case, as stated by Mitsuda in one of the Japanese Q&A answers.
https://twitter.com/CHRONO_CROSS_RD/status/1507507628955602953/

I was transcribing the answers as they came out, so I've known for a while.

[sergecross73]

There's been a huge uproar online about there not being a soundtrack-switching option, but yes, those songs aren't part of regular gameplay in any case, as stated by Mitsuda in one of the Japanese Q&A answers.
https://twitter.com/CHRONO_CROSS_RD/status/1507507628955602953/

I was transcribing the answers as they came out, so I've known for a while.

I don't understand the "uproar". Outside of a handful of the songs, my understanding was that most of the OST was more or less the same. I assumed terms like "refined" just meant it was going to be the same music, just slightly higher sound quality. Kind of like, whether a song is MP3 or FLAC quality, it's still the same song ultimately.

[Razig]

I don't understand the "uproar". Outside of a handful of the songs, my understanding was that most of the OST was more or less the same. I assumed terms like "refined" just meant it was going to be the same music, just slightly higher sound quality. Kind of like, whether a song is MP3 or FLAC quality, it's still the same song ultimately.

It's because that handful of songs was so bad, and Square wasn't clear that they would be part of a separate album. People were worried that the new versions would replace the originals in the game itself.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Gotta love misplaced outrage.

[sergecross73]

I wonder when/where the new tracks will be used then. The ending credits? Some sort of "game select" screen where you chose Chrono Cross or Radical Dreamers?

[Razig]

https://twitter.com/CHRONO_CROSS_RD/status/1510814421446238208

New key art released by Nobuteru Yuki, who was in charge of character design ‼️🎨✨

 It is also used on the cover of Famitsu-san, which was announced today on 4/7 (Thursday) 🙌 and will be released on the same day as this work ☝️ .
 There are also valuable development secret stories, so please check them out 📘✨ .

Hopefully somebody can acquire a copy of this magazine for the Compendium.

[GasparXR]

I like that two of the arrangements on the album are from Radical Dreamers. (the opening theme and credits theme, the latter of which has lyrics written by Masato Kato!)

[sergecross73]

https://twitter.com/chronogame/status/1511667785918664709?s=21&t=l3VCqjhzAo0pu27PHofguA

Interesting notes from the dev team:

1) They initially intended on releasing it 3 years ago, but issues got in the way.

2) They said to pay attention to the new end credits of both CC and RD. (I wonder if that's where the new songs are?)

[Ema]

So I've been looking at a lot of gameplay and review videos of the game and so far it looks to me like the only 3D models I've noticed that were actually re-done are: Serge, Kid, Guile (for some reason?), and Lynx.

Game unlocks at midnight and I can't wait to poke and prod around but I'm mostly hoping for someone to mod it so we can replace the backgrounds with way better AI Upscaled images, 'cause some of them made me cringe in disappointment

I've heard a lot of talks about the Switch and PS4/5 versions having a lot of frame rate issues and I can't help but wonder if its literally reffering to the same frame rate drops back in the ps1. I can imagine...(at least in PC) that this is something that can be easily fixable by unlocking the frame rate maybe?

Also off-topic but, I've gone through several reviewers (who are self-proclaimed big time fans of the game) and all of them were mind blown by the fast forward and slow mo feature and none of them seemed to be aware this was actually a feature of the original...u just had to earn it by beating the game... @____@

[sergecross73]

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/04/06/chrono-cross-the-radical-dreamers-edition-remastering-a-classic/#sf255253049

New interview. It notes that the remaster took a while because the originally game was not completely saved and had parts that needed to be recreated.

[Ema]

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/04/06/chrono-cross-the-radical-dreamers-edition-remastering-a-classic/#sf255253049

New interview. It notes that the remaster took a while because the originally game was not completely saved and had parts that needed to be recreated.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say he's lying about the human touch in those backgrounds. They look like the were just machine upscaled on bulk with the same settings for all of them and no one bothered to touch up any of the weird hiccups. And IF they were actually curated by a team of artists, I'd say they need to invest in a better team. What the fan community has done in their free time for the FF9 remaster mod shows a lot more care.

I find the talk about parts missing interesting and confusing. But then again I'm no game developer.

Also I was holding out hope that the release of this remaster meant something for the future of Chrono, maybe a remake(yeah i know). But with them saying they were meaning to do this 3 years ago I'm not sure that might the case anymore. @____@

[sergecross73]

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/04/06/chrono-cross-the-radical-dreamers-edition-remastering-a-classic/#sf255253049

New interview. It notes that the remaster took a while because the originally game was not completely saved and had parts that needed to be recreated.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say he's lying about the human touch in those backgrounds. They look like the were just machine upscaled on bulk with the same settings for all of them and no one bothered to touch up any of the weird hiccups. And IF they were actually curated by a team of artists, I'd say they need to invest in a better team. What the fan community has done in their free time for the FF9 remaster mod shows a lot more care.

I find the talk about parts missing interesting and confusing. But then again I'm no game developer.

Also I was holding out hope that the release of this remaster meant something for the future of Chrono, maybe a remake(yeah i know). But with them saying they were meaning to do this 3 years ago I'm not sure that might the case anymore. @____@

It says they did some AI/computer upscaling as well, so maybe it varies on what was done.

As far as the lost data goes, the problem is that some companies, like Square, did a poor job of saving game's source code in the 90s. They had to do the same thing with recreating lost data with Final Fantasy 8 Remastered as well - and that was why FF released well after ports of FF7 and FF9. It's also supposedly why Sega never has ported Panzer Dragoon Saga to any other platforms - they lost the source code.

I get some of the pessimism, I kinda wish they added more new content to CC Remastered. But I'm actually kind of happy to see this story. They could have just as easily cancelled the whole project. But instead, they took 3 years to complete and release it. I'm hoping that's a sign that they care about the franchise a little bit at least...