Why the Chrono Cross Hate?

[GenesisOne]

Recently, I have happened upon a dated website (founded in 2000) that apparently has a beef with Chrono Cross in a variety of areas.  Whether the author is well-founded in his arguments of Chrono Cross' shortcomings is entirely up to the readers.

Here is the webpage in question: http://www.yamoslair.com/ccsucks.html

Yes, the url clearly uses the word "sucks" to describe its viewpoint of Chrono Cross.  Anyway, somewhere on the page is a numeric list which, according to the author, is just a short list.  You be the judge of how short it is.

1. No recurring playable characters.
2. Small game world is bland, cramped, and monotonous.
3. Element system removes almost all character individuality in combat and contributes to a Pokemon-like classification of characters by "color."
4. Character design is far inferior to Akira Toriyama's work in Chrono Trigger.
5. Huge portions of the game consist entirely of empty filler in the form of dull fetch quests and monster hunting exercises.
6. Characters limited to three or less unique tech skills.
7. Virtually no double and triple techs.
8. Development for the majority of character is severely lacking or completely nonexistant.
9. Most characters are silly and pointless.
10. Some plot "revelations" (like Lynx being Serge's father) make little sense and seem like pointless afterthoughts designed to cover for poor scenario writing.
11. Much less varied, interesting, and memorable musical score.
12. Numerous hints that Chrono Trigger characters were killed off in inappropriate, unsatisfying, and difficult to believe fashions.
13. Schala's appearence in Chrono Cross (wrong hair color, clothing, facial structure, etc) is a blatent continuity error.
14. Supposed creation of humans by Lavos is another glaring continuity error.
15. No interesting flying vehicle (like the Epoch) for players to explore the world in.
16. Magus character completely invalidated and insulted through implication the he wasn't the one to find his long-lost sister.
17. No strong villian. Lynx's motives are about as clear as mud and the threat posed by the final bosses is far too vague to be tension-building.
18. Final boss posesses no unique attacks at all, despite the perfect opportunity to make use of the classic Lavos attacks from Chrono Trigger.
19. "Good" ending is pseudo-mystical nonsense followed by a brief movie that makes no sense whatsoever. Schala in modern Japan? What were they thinking?
20. Fewer alternate endings, none of which as as clever or interesting as the Chrono Trigger alternate endings.
21. Character have to physically hit enemies in combat before they can cast spells and use tech skills, which makes little sense and slows combat considerably.
22. Fixed rate level advancement removes all the fun and challenge of "building up" favorite characters.
23. Loading times before and after combats are ridiculously long. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which had none.
24. Characters behave illogically. Those that joined your party when you were Serge will not help you when you are Lynx, even though they often know that you are the same person.
25. Boring "weapon-forging" system largely eliminates fun of hunting down interesting weapons, armor, etc.

Pick a number, any number, and feel free to discuss, aanalyze, refute, whatever with it.  From my standpoint, these are nothing more than slight inconveniences that shouldn't detract from the game play experience.

[IAmSerge]

save the last for first!

25:  It may not involve "hunting" down weapons (which doesn't even happen in CT, unless you're stupid), however it does take time and effort to get the summon spells required to get the base materials for the rainbow weapons.  Even then, you still need to find rainbow shards, which takes alot more "hunting" than CT ever did.

[Thought]

Well the page got one thing dead wrong: Chrono Cross was not intended to be a direct sequel to Chrono Trigger. This is curious since the page also cite's Masato's response to that very question. So it claims that CC is a direct sequel while presenting evidence that it was not.

For the page's general premise (does CC stack up to CT), I'm sure Zeality or someone else will come along soon with the standard comparison of sales graphic. If people vote with their pocketbooks, then the players have elected CC, not CT, as the champion.

The essential reason for the hate is that CC was not CT. It was something different; I still like CT more, but CC has its own merits and is a good game in its own right.

[Mr Bekkler]

3. Element system removes almost all character individuality in combat and contributes to a Pokemon-like classification of characters by "color."

5. Huge portions of the game consist entirely of empty filler in the form of dull fetch quests and monster hunting exercises.

16. Magus character completely invalidated and insulted through implication the he wasn't the one to find his long-lost sister.

23. Loading times before and after combats are ridiculously long. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which had none.

3. Arena of Ages.

5. Beef Jerky, Gate Key Stolen, Turn on the power, The Seed

16. Dream Devourer.

23. FF Chronicles.

[Truthordeal]

Here's my personal response:

1. No recurring playable characters.
Because its a new game, so new characters and new adventures should be had, not the same old rehash. Furthermore, are we to believe that we could have an entertaining game based around characters so powerful that they killed Lavos, only to have someone inexplicably stronger than them to make it interesting?

That's what you call DBZ syndrome right there.
 
2. Small game world is bland, cramped, and monotonous.
Agreed. I'll concede that point. A larger world map would've been nice.

3. Element system removes almost all character individuality in combat and contributes to a Pokemon-like classification of characters by "color."
Except the techs. They forgot(or didn't care) to mention techs.

4. Character design is far inferior to Akira Toriyama's work in Chrono Trigger.
That's subjective. Honestly, I like Toriyama's creations in Dragon Quest more than the DBZ rip-off that became the Chrono Trigger cut scenes.

5. Huge portions of the game consist entirely of empty filler in the form of dull fetch quests and monster hunting exercises.
And Chrono Trigger didn't? Does anyone remember the quest to get the Masamune? Or to revive Crono?

6. Characters limited to three or less unique tech skills.
Already mentioned.

7. Virtually no double and triple techs.
Excellent point. I agree wholeheartedly.

8. Development for the majority of character is severely lacking or completely nonexistant.
Unless you count Serge, Kid, Lynx, Harle, Radius, Karsh, Skelly, Leena, Fargo, Niki, Miki, Marcy, Viper, Riddel, Glenn, Funguy to a lesser degree, Razzly, and Zappa. I do see your point, though. Perhaps a third disk should've been made to contain all of these characters if two simply wasn't enough space.

9. Most characters are silly and pointless.
Pointless was already covered. You say silly, I say comic relief, or nutritiously comical. Some of the silliness is a relief after the darkness of the game's overall plot.

10. Some plot "revelations" (like Lynx being Serge's father) make little sense and seem like pointless afterthoughts designed to cover for poor scenario writing.
I understand why people are confused about the storyline of Cross and why they might think this. Heck, I thought so not three weeks ago. Its simply a complex story and a lot of info dump is put in at the end, so it all gets lost in the cross fire, unfortunately. Fortunately though, there's the Compendium.

11. Much less varied, interesting, and memorable musical score.
Bullshit crap. Well, then again, that's also subjective. I thought that the musical score was as good as if not better than Mitsuda's score for the original Chrono Trigger.

12. Numerous hints that Chrono Trigger characters were killed off in inappropriate, unsatisfying, and difficult to believe fashions.
There's no evidence that Crono and Marle died. Everyone else died of old age(Ayla, Frog) and Robo hadn't existed yet. Lucca's death was believable though, that she was killed in a fire or at the hands of Lynx and Marle Harle.

13. Schala's appearence in Chrono Cross (wrong hair color, clothing, facial structure, etc) is a blatent continuity error.
Schala and Kid aren't the same person. The Schala in the Time Devourer wasn't even the exact same Schala from CT. 13020 years passed, after all. That can change a person.

14. Supposed creation of humans by Lavos is another glaring continuity error.
Misunderstood. Humans were given magic abilities by the Frozen Flame, they weren't created by him.

15. No interesting flying vehicle (like the Epoch) for players to explore the world in.
Um...flying centipede, anyone?

16. Magus character completely invalidated and insulted through implication the he wasn't the one to find his long-lost sister.
Unless he was in your party when you fought the Time Devourer. And, not to beat a dead horse, but Guile isn't Magus. He was intended to be, but they cut it.

17. No strong villian. Lynx's motives are about as clear as mud and the threat posed by the final bosses is far too vague to be tension-building.
Lynx at Ft. Dragonia was a decent boss. Same with Miguel.

18. Final boss posesses no unique attacks at all, despite the perfect opportunity to make use of the classic Lavos attacks from Chrono Trigger.
Meh. Not really all that important.

19. "Good" ending is pseudo-mystical nonsense followed by a brief movie that makes no sense whatsoever. Schala in modern Japan? What were they thinking?
Kato's got a twisted mind, I guess.

20. Fewer alternate endings, none of which as as clever or interesting as the Chrono Trigger alternate endings.
That's subjective. Most of Chrono Trigger's endings were just the ending credits scrolled to a different back screen. That's not all that interesting to me.

21. Character have to physically hit enemies in combat before they can cast spells and use tech skills, which makes little sense and slows combat considerably.
It also adds a layer of difficulty that was lacking from CT.

22. Fixed rate level advancement removes all the fun and challenge of "building up" favorite characters.
It also gets rid of having to level grind, or rather, being able to level grind. It adds another layer of difficulty.

23. Loading times before and after combats are ridiculously long. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which had none.
PS1 3-D graphics vs. SNES 16-bit graphics. Something had to go.

24. Characters behave illogically. Those that joined your party when you were Serge will not help you when you are Lynx, even though they often know that you are the same person.
Except they don't, especially when you get sucked into the dimensional vortex and emerge to a different world while someone has your real body.

25. Boring "weapon-forging" system largely eliminates fun of hunting down interesting weapons, armor, etc.
It's stupid, I'll give you that, but it's a lot more interesting than just having to buy a weapon. I think the word tedious would be better suited than boring.

[maggiekarp]

1. No recurring playable characters.
I think this means none of the playable characters seem important for specific parts, and that's kinda true. Once a character joins your party it feels like they can rot in the transport chamber forever.

2. Small game world is bland, cramped, and monotonous.
Small yes, cramped yes, bland and monotonous... that's up to personal taste, but I disagree.

3. Element system removes almost all character individuality in combat and contributes to a Pokemon-like classification of characters by "color."
I actually liked the battle system in Cross, but there is a point to be made here.

4. Character design is far inferior to Akira Toriyama's work in Chrono Trigger.
Character design was one of the only things the cast had going for them.

5. Huge portions of the game consist entirely of empty filler in the form of dull fetch quests and monster hunting exercises.
This is why so many people dislike the "plot" of Cross. All of these filler quests are incredibly enjoyable when you're playing them, but by the time you get to the end and try to piece the story together, they seem so pointless. The problem here then isn't crappy sidequests, but a crappy over-arching plot.

6. Characters limited to three or less unique tech skills.
Cross needed less characters. If you argue against this you are dumb and a butt.

7. Virtually no double and triple techs.
Again, a problem of too many PCs

8. Development for the majority of character is severely lacking or completely nonexistant.
See above.

9. Most characters are silly and pointless.
Because once again there are TOO MANYYYYYY

10. Some plot "revelations" (like Lynx being Serge's father) make little sense and seem like pointless afterthoughts designed to cover for poor scenario writing.
See response to 5. The plot of Cross is also needlessly convoluted.

11. Much less varied, interesting, and memorable musical score.
I will disagree with this to my dying breath. Cross's soundtrack was incredible, and even the most rabid anti-Cross person will commend the soundtrack chops. I think this guy just ran out of ways to say "too many characters and the plot is ridiculous with no soul".

12. Numerous hints that Chrono Trigger characters were killed off in inappropriate, unsatisfying, and difficult to believe fashions.
The only death I was okay with in this game was Lucca's, because it contributed something to the "plot" and the character of Kid. Robo's death was just... ugh.

13. Schala's appearence in Chrono Cross (wrong hair color, clothing, facial structure, etc) is a blatent continuity error.
I can see why they would make Kid look different so the plot revelation isn't so obvious, just like how Rei Ayanami has a different color scheme than Shinji's mama, but there really was no reason for Schala herself to be so completely different. She was a teenaged blue-haired hottie, now all of a sudden she's a little blonde girl? They could have thrown something in like "Lavos is draining her essence" to explain this, but the plot is such a clusterfuck there was no room.

14. Supposed creation of humans by Lavos is another glaring continuity error.
I agree with this in a way... I think it's the Dreamstone that spawned human dreams, and the Frozen Flame of Cross was a different thing entirely.

15. No interesting flying vehicle (like the Epoch) for players to explore the world in.
Flying vehicles are awesome, but Cross didn't suffer from the lack of them. Riding in a boat was fun.

16. Magus character completely invalidated and insulted through implication the he wasn't the one to find his long-lost sister.
I think Magus should have been in Cross with a larger role, but I'm not mad he didn't get to Schala first/Schala didn't really care about him. Everyone knows Magus fails at life, and everyone also knows that Schala is a self-absorbed trollop. LOL IT'Z CANON NOW

17. No strong villian. Lynx's motives are about as clear as mud and the threat posed by the final bosses is far too vague to be tension-building.
I... agree.

18. Final boss posesses no unique attacks at all, despite the perfect opportunity to make use of the classic Lavos attacks from Chrono Trigger.
This could be because I don't remember the battle too well, but I agree with this as well.

19. "Good" ending is pseudo-mystical nonsense followed by a brief movie that makes no sense whatsoever. Schala in modern Japan? What were they thinking?
I have read and understood what Kato was going for, but when it comes to Cross's ending I always remember a quote from a friend

Chrono Cross is a fat man screaming "LET'S RIDE THE MOTHERFUCKING PONY!" prancing around slapping his hairy dick all over your face and squealing out random quotations ranging from Kafka to Nietzsche to Madame Bovary, and then he's like "GET READY TO ROCK THIS SHIT avant garde style!" and then he orgasms and nothing but a stale puff of dust hits your face and the dust JAPAN POP SONG END.

20. Fewer alternate endings, none of which as as clever or interesting as the Chrono Trigger alternate endings.
I was so tired of Cross from my first playthrough that I never even bothered to go through it again to get the other endings.

21. Character have to physically hit enemies in combat before they can cast spells and use tech skills, which makes little sense and slows combat considerably.
I liked the battle system, so this is a matter of personal taste.

22. Fixed rate level advancement removes all the fun and challenge of "building up" favorite characters.
This was a bizarre thing, but I liked it. It was a new way to prevent grinding that is so prevalent in JRPGs and I think they pulled it off without making enemies too easy.

23. Loading times before and after combats are ridiculously long. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which had none.
Loading times sucked in the Playstation release of Chrono Trigger because you were used to fast-paced action. Because Cross was a Playstation game, for the most part load times were expected. Personal taste/ this guy doesn't understand how PS works.

24. Characters behave illogically. Those that joined your party when you were Serge will not help you when you are Lynx, even though they often know that you are the same person.
This was an interesting part of the plot, so I disagree here. Still gotta harp on the too many characters thang, though.

25. Boring "weapon-forging" system largely eliminates fun of hunting down interesting weapons, armor, etc.
I never really got into the weapon forging system... I think they could have been clearer on what to do, but it wasn't bad at all.

Well the page got one thing dead wrong: Chrono Cross was not intended to be a direct sequel to Chrono Trigger.

Except with CTDS's new tie-in, it totally is.

For the page's general premise (does CC stack up to CT), I'm sure Zeality or someone else will come along soon with the standard comparison of sales graphic. If people vote with their pocketbooks, then the players have elected CC, not CT, as the champion.

Sales are not indicative of a game's quality and how well it was enjoyed. Listen to Shinji Hashimoto!

The essential reason for the hate is that CC was not CT. It was something different; I still like CT more, but CC has its own merits and is a good game in its own right.

We don't dislike CC because it isn't CT. We dislike it because it shouldn't even be in the same universe as CT, but drags down the experience of both by clinging on with its terrible tentacles and lackluster plot. I leave you with another quote.

DK: Basically you have to envision the whole CT/CC thing like this.
DK: CT had like a terminal colon prolapse and you had to sit with him for your volunteer hours in high school. You had some trepidation but he told stories that were entertaining (I started to add "if slightly devoid of character" but this is no time for insults). The two of you had fun together long after your volunteer hours ended, and then he died. You went to his room, despairing, knowing
DK: you'd never know the ending of his Schala story. You were disconsolate.
DK: "He left something for you," the gray-eyed nurse, says, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. "Here."
DK: And then she hits you in the face with one of his overflowing colostomy bags.
DK: "Also, he had an erection the entire time he was talking with you," she says, with a sage nod. "I thought you should know."
DK: Hence the experience of both is TAINTED, TAINTED

[Thought]

12. Numerous hints that Chrono Trigger characters were killed off in inappropriate, unsatisfying, and difficult to believe fashions.
There's no evidence that Crono and Marle died. Everyone else died of old age(Ayla, Frog) and Robo hadn't existed yet. Lucca's death was believable though, that she was killed in a fire or at the hands of Lynx and Marle Harle.

Lucca's death has never been confimed. Like everyone who died in X-Men 3, they left enough room for her to come back.

[Truthordeal]

6. Characters limited to three or less unique tech skills.
Cross needed less characters. If you argue against this you are dumb and a butt.

That is by far the best response to something like this I have ever heard, Maggiekarp.

You made your point, and it was hilarious. I agree, by the way. Every word of it.

Lucca's death has never been confimed. Like everyone who died in X-Men 3, they left enough room for her to come back.

There you go. Just proved my point more.

[IAmSerge]

gj refuting you guys =D

[Thought]

Well the page got one thing dead wrong: Chrono Cross was not intended to be a direct sequel to Chrono Trigger.

Except with CTDS's new tie-in, it totally is.

While one can retcon cannon, one cannot retcon original intent.

For the page's general premise (does CC stack up to CT), I'm sure Zeality or someone else will come along soon with the standard comparison of sales graphic. If people vote with their pocketbooks, then the players have elected CC, not CT, as the champion.

Sales are not indicative of a game's quality and how well it was enjoyed.

If/then statements can be tricky things but yes, if one rejects the premise, then one also rejects the conclusion (curses, another if/then statement!). Do note that I never claimed that sales were indicative, rather that if they were, then...

Lucca's death has never been confirmed. Like everyone who died in X-Men 3, they left enough room for her to come back.

There you go. Just proved my point more.

What was your point? Mine was merely that the evidence does not lead to an absolute conclusion; people complaining that Lucca died is nothing more than people complaining about their perceptions of the game, not the game itself. It was not a comment as to if Lucca should have died or if she should be present in a hypothetical sequel.

[maggiekarp]

gj refuting you guys =D

You can like something and still be willing to mock it/acknowledge its bad points.

The favorite character of most of this website is Magus and the dude is nothing but bad points!

[Truthordeal]

My point in my refute, Thought, that the deaths were not totally unexpected, especially since the only three that would be alive at that time weren't necessarily dead.

[ZeaLitY]

Most of his criticisms are invalidated by his premise that Chrono Cross should have been like Chrono Trigger.

1. No recurring playable characters.

How dare this sacred rule of RPGs be violated. Think of the poor people who were kids in 1995 and wanted to relive that impossibly aggrandized nostalgia!

2. Small game world is bland, cramped, and monotonous.

Aw, someone's missing Midgar. El Nido is a tropical orgy of color and style.

3. Element system removes almost all character individuality in combat and contributes to a Pokemon-like classification of characters by "color."

Yes, because no other RPG has done this with Materia or Espers.

Character design is far inferior to Akira Toriyama's work in Chrono Trigger.

HAHAHA, yeah, Chrono Cross really suffers horribly from 1) characters that don't look like they all have Down's syndrome and 2) Dragon Ball Z ripoffs.

5. Huge portions of the game consist entirely of empty filler in the form of dull fetch quests and monster hunting exercises.

Yeah, too many of these in Chrono Trigger and every other RPG ever made. Just whining.

6. Characters limited to three or less unique tech skills.
7. Virtually no double and triple techs.

This is arguing from the premise that Chrono Cross needed to be like Chrono Trigger, which is irrational.

8. Development for the majority of character is severely lacking or completely nonexistant.

Just flat-out wrong. Cross has tons more development than Trigger's characters by weight. Marle was a bubbly princess, Lucca was an brilliant scientist, and Robo was beep boop. Where's the depth? Trigger had Frog and Magus, and that's about it. If you notice, most of the story is driven by their development (meeting Frog, going to Magus's castle to stop the "creation" of Lavos, going to Zeal and learning more about the Zeal family, etc.) Crono might as well be called "Hiro Protagonist".

9. Most characters are silly and pointless.

Some, but not most.

10. Some plot "revelations" (like Lynx being Serge's father) make little sense and seem like pointless afterthoughts designed to cover for poor scenario writing.

He'd need to elaborate on this significantly to have any hope of arguing this point. Masato Kato is famous for his revelations and twists.

11. Much less varied, interesting, and memorable musical score.

Baseless opinion. The score of Chrono Cross won a PSX Golden award and is lauded by all corners of the industry and gaming fanbase. It is objectively good.

12. Numerous hints that Chrono Trigger characters were killed off in inappropriate, unsatisfying, and difficult to believe fashions.

Where's your Messiah now? This is just a powerlevel dispute stemming from fanboy resistance to the killing of their precious nostalgic characters. It's not even canon that Crono and Marle are necessarily dead.

13. Schala's appearence in Chrono Cross (wrong hair color, clothing, facial structure, etc) is a blatent continuity error.

In a series about time travel, he picks out a stylistic change to a character as a plot hole.

14. Supposed creation of humans by Lavos is another glaring continuity error.

Learn how to read.

15. No interesting flying vehicle (like the Epoch) for players to explore the world in.

Jeez, he should figure out whether he likes or dislikes RPG cliches. He's complaining about the Materia effect up there, but now he's crying for a stock airship.

16. Magus character completely invalidated and insulted through implication the he wasn't the one to find his long-lost sister.

Almost a good criticism about his absence from the game, but nothing is "completely invalidated" about Magus.

17. No strong villian. Lynx's motives are about as clear as mud and the threat posed by the final bosses is far too vague to be tension-building.

R-E-A-D

18. Final boss posesses no unique attacks at all, despite the perfect opportunity to make use of the classic Lavos attacks from Chrono Trigger.

Is anyone accepting this as valid criticism? It's just total fanboy nostalgia. "I WANTED 2 SEE DESTERUCTILOON RAIN FROM TEH HEAVNZ ASSHOEL KATO!!!1" Besides, there were the Omega elemental attacks.

19. "Good" ending is pseudo-mystical nonsense followed by a brief movie that makes no sense whatsoever. Schala in modern Japan? What were they thinking?

At last, a valid criticism. It took a while.

20. Fewer alternate endings, none of which as as clever or interesting as the Chrono Trigger alternate endings.

Nothing but nostalgic opinion. The General Kid ending was in the springtime of youth, and the "new careers" ending for the Dragoons easily surpassed a lot of Trigger's humorous moments.

21. Character have to physically hit enemies in combat before they can cast spells and use tech skills, which makes little sense and slows combat considerably.

And yet, others loved the battle system and considered it innovative. Just arguing from "should have been like Trigger."

22. Fixed rate level advancement removes all the fun and challenge of "building up" favorite characters.

I considered it a total relief that I didn't have to grind levels, and enjoyed how the game kept things on a challenging pace if I avoided the field monsters. This is an appeal to Trigger and RPG cliches.

23. Loading times before and after combats are ridiculously long. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which had none.

Well fuck, I guess Square should have just gone the opposite direction and made 8-bit Chrono Cross.

24. Characters behave illogically. Those that joined your party when you were Serge will not help you when you are Lynx, even though they often know that you are the same person.

Most of them had personal business to attend to in the meantime.

25. Boring "weapon-forging" system largely eliminates fun of hunting down interesting weapons, armor, etc.

I thought it was unique, especially how it made me choose weapons and armor to have broken down so I could get at the basic materials and forge better equipment.

So there you go. Some guy who had the best childhood summer ever in 1995 and embossed the memories with nostalgic joy was disappointed that Tanaka and Kato didn't make a carbon copy of his cartridge pal to let him relive the glory days, but instead kept up the Chrono series forte of attempting RPG innovations.

[Satoh]

So there you go. Some guy who had the best childhood summer ever in 1995 and embossed the memories with nostalgic joy was disappointed that Tanaka and Kato didn't make a carbon copy of his cartridge pal to let him relive the glory days, but instead kept up the Chrono series forte of attempting RPG innovations.

Something tells me he loved the whole DS port though...smidges.... *shudder*

[V_Translanka]

I don't really get the point of this topic...You answer your question with the thread...Seems like it's just a dumping ground for people to post their grievances with people who they disagree with...i.e. FRUSTRATION THREAD~!! But I digress as I'm one of the people that, while I did indeed enjoy CC, I'm not deluded enough to call it perfect by any means. I'll go over the list before reading others' comments, though...

1. No recurring playable characters.

OH NOS! WHERE'S MY NOSTALGIA TRIP!?!?

2. Small game world is bland, cramped, and monotonous.

It was ok, but indeed could have been better...Maybe with more topographical changes between the dimensions like seen on Earth Dragon Isle would have been an improvement...

3. Element system removes almost all character individuality in combat and contributes to a Pokemon-like classification of characters by "color."

Agree with the first part, disagree with the second. CT characters had the "Pokemon" innate/type deal too.

4. Character design is far inferior to Akira Toriyama's work in Chrono Trigger.

I agree, but that's insanely opinionated. That's like saying Red is a better color than Blue so Crono>Serge and thus CC sucks...>_>

5. Huge portions of the game consist entirely of empty filler in the form of dull fetch quests and monster hunting exercises.

True enough, but name an RPG that doesn't.

6. Characters limited to three or less unique tech skills.

Agreed. That is a pain...but to be fair, in CT, characters prior to Magic only have access to 2 or 3 Techs as well...CC needed Spekkio bad.

7. Virtually no double and triple techs.

This is really the same as #6.

8. Development for the majority of character is severely lacking or completely nonexistant.

The only real argument for disliking Cross and my only major hang-up.

9. Most characters are silly and pointless.

This is the same as #8.

10. Some plot "revelations" (like Lynx being Serge's father) make little sense and seem like pointless afterthoughts designed to cover for poor scenario writing.

Only if you aren't paying attention or didn't understand something, but the fact that this is so often pointed out about CC brings to light the fact that the story isn't exactly player-friendly all of the time...But it's got a kind of bigger and more intricate tale to weave, so that's understandable, really.

11. Much less varied, interesting, and memorable musical score.

I more or less agree, but that doesn't mean the music is bad. CC's best songs are some of the best of the series! The soundtrack is often lauded as RPG greatness and one of the defining (/redeeming?) aspects of CC.

12. Numerous hints that Chrono Trigger characters were killed off in inappropriate, unsatisfying, and difficult to believe fashions.

OMG MY SENSE OF NOSTALGIA CAN'T HANDLE POSSIBLE DEATHS!! It was really only 1...maybe 3...I don't really count the Prometheus circuit as actually being Robo...everyone else is just somewheres in time...

13. Schala's appearence in Chrono Cross (wrong hair color, clothing, facial structure, etc) is a blatent continuity error.

You try getting fused to a galactic parasite of ultimate destruction and see if you don't get a mite changed. Also, if they didn't, Kid wouldn't be as unique nor a surprise...

14. Supposed creation of humans by Lavos is another glaring continuity error.

You read it wrong. I hope someone eventually pointed this guy to the Compendium...

15. No interesting flying vehicle (like the Epoch) for players to explore the world in.

So what? Didn't he just say the world was small and uninteresting? This isn't something necessary to be a good RPG either and a rather ignoramus reason to dislike CC.

16. Magus character completely invalidated and insulted through implication the he wasn't the one to find his long-lost sister.

So gay I can barely even come up with the words...mostly stupid nostalgia at it again (OMG WHERE'S MAGUS, LOOK THERE'S HIS SISTER! T_T)...but this has been sort of invalidated itself with CTDS...

17. No strong villian. Lynx's motives are about as clear as mud and the threat posed by the final bosses is far too vague to be tension-building.

I don't even know what this means...but most of it seems like more, "I didn't get it!" talk...

18. Final boss posesses no unique attacks at all, despite the perfect opportunity to make use of the classic Lavos attacks from Chrono Trigger.

It's not Lavos, for one...But I sorta agree. The battle is so short using the CC though that I probably wouldn't have seen any of them anyways...You're not supposed to really fight it so much as eradicate it from existence.

19. "Good" ending is pseudo-mystical nonsense followed by a brief movie that makes no sense whatsoever. Schala in modern Japan? What were they thinking?

"I didn't get it!" strikes again!

20. Fewer alternate endings, none of which as as clever or interesting as the Chrono Trigger alternate endings.

Fewer, yes, but the rest is flat-out lies. I think it keeps more or less the same good/bleh ratio that CT had...The Harle & Serge-as-Lynx ending was especially sweet.

21. Character have to physically hit enemies in combat before they can cast spells and use tech skills, which makes little sense and slows combat considerably.

Meh, just a battle system quirk and certainly not worth saying CC sucks over...

22. Fixed rate level advancement removes all the fun and challenge of "building up" favorite characters.

Uh...I guess...?

23. Loading times before and after combats are ridiculously long. Unlike Chrono Trigger, which had none.

I didn't notice them...>_>

24. Characters behave illogically. Those that joined your party when you were Serge will not help you when you are Lynx, even though they often know that you are the same person.

Maybe they don't want to hang around a guy who looks like a guy who totally fuct a lot of people...? It's not like they formed strong friendships or anything with him when he was Serge after all...

25. Boring "weapon-forging" system largely eliminates fun of hunting down interesting weapons, armor, etc.

Meh...I didn't really dig it that much either, but I don't think it detracted anything...So you hunt for Rainbow Shells instead of actual Rainbow items...big whoop. Could have been better equip though, I agree, but I think they made up for it with a wider variety of Accessories (and the ability to equip up to 3).