Was Chrono Cross too easy ?

[HeadlessFritz]

I always thought so. I've been replaying the game lately and thought that the bosses fell too rapidly. You have about 60 health, and the most damage the mother komodo can do is 7 and she's really slow. She's killable in 2 or 3 turns. I'm at the hydra marshes right now and :

-Karsh, pepper and Solt fight was ridiculous, their attacks were about 2 or 3 damage.
-I killed Marcy in two rounds.
-I killed Lynx and the only attack he could do is 2 Imbecile elements !

If I remember correctly, the only hard boss in the game was Miguel, but that's just if you wanted to keep all your party alive. All the bosses at the end were ridiculous, especially when you had the Mastermune (the "...tor statues especially).

It's one of the rare RPGs that I have to choose defend if I want to see what attacks the enemies would have done if I let them live longer. Even CT was harder. You actually had to heal in the fights. In cross, you just attack and receive few damage. What happened with the testers' feedback ? It's almost impossible to die in most fights except if you wait and receive damage for 5 minutes. I played the game about 15 times if you count NG+ and always thought that the bosses had not enough HP and speed. I understand the system could be a bit difficult to understand for about 30 minute, but the rest of the game should not have been so easy.

What do you think about the difficulty ?

[utunnels]

Well, I didn't feel too easy when I fought them for the first time. But I agree the game's difficulty is below average, especially when you know the system well enough, it becomes a piece of cake. Fairly low difficulty is good for those who wants to enjoy the story during the first play through, but not for those who like challenges.

I recall when I fought Miguel, I tried about ten times before eventually won(too bad you have to read his preach every time you suffer a defeat). Garai, Dario, Polis, etc, Police all caused troubles. Some regular enemies are actually though when you fight them for the first time. IIRC, the Viper Manor mission is tougher when you choose Pierre's route, though I only tried that once.

I guess that was because the characters are not well equipped and I didn't know the patterns of the enemies quite well. For example, Miguel killed Lynx in 1 hit at the beginning, which is quite annoying consider I didn't have any Revive element.

[OverlordMikey]

I'm an RPG player so I rarely find RPGs difficult anyway. I do feel that the game was quite easy, but I'm not one to give an assessment of the everyday player...

Am I the ONLY person here who had no real difficulty fighting Miguel?

The only problem I had was against the Time Devourer (and that was just for getting the true ending; otherwise she's fairly simple to beat) and for that I found a sure fire way that involves using Leena.

[gatotsu911]

Yes. The battle system has marvelous nuances and complexities that most players will never get to experience because they'll never be required to incorporate any strategy more complex than "1, 2, 3, Element". Someone ought to make a modded version of the game that ups the difficulty level, like they did for Final Fantasy Tactics.

[HeadlessFritz]

Yes. The battle system has marvelous nuances and complexities that most players will never get to experience because they'll never be required to incorporate any strategy more complex than "1, 2, 3, Element". Someone ought to make a modded version of the game that ups the difficulty level, like they did for Final Fantasy Tactics.

That's what I think too. It's a really cool battle system, but I felt most bosses should have 2 or 3 time the hp they have now (maybe 4 time if we talk about the doll bosses at the end because they fall in 1-2 turns if you have the mastermune). Otherwise, you'll have to defend and wait. I was surprised when I discovered that Solt and Pepper had a double tech.

[Samopoznanie]

As I recall, any easiness was balanced out by the muddled storytelling in the second half of the game... I remember being quite confused at times, when I first played through it!

[Licawolf]

The only part which I remember being particularly difficult was the Dragon God 

[Bard_of_Time]

Some of the bosses made me angry, but I agree, it was on the easy side. Not TOO too easy, mind you. But definitely not some of the older games I've played.

[utunnels]

Seriously, the last boss is not easy if you want to chop it down. It is boring and takes long time and you need to heal Serge periodically.
Sometimes more HP =/= better, there's should be more strategy involved.

[HeadlessFritz]

Just to give some more feedback, I'm fightning the dragons with Lynx. So far, the only boss that I've had difficulty with is Miguel (Difficulty in the sense of keeping my three characters alive. With Diminish it was okay). The rest fall extremely fast. Is it because I get the bonus between the star level ? I don't know. Sometimes, I don't even have the latest armors or weapons.

It's sad, because I remember the Aquator, Terrator, etc. dolls died in one or two rounds in my last game.  It'd be nice if there was some way to double or triple the difficulty. The battle system is very cool, but I find no opportunity to use it's potential strategies as it's useless.

[FaustWolf]

Would simply upping enemy stats do the trick, though? I've always been of the opinion that having to budget stamina for reaction abilities, a la Valkyrie Profile, is the way to go. (Actually, I forget whether sacrifice had to be made for reaction abilities there, even). It'd take some serious work at the assembly level to make something like that happen here or in Xenogears though. Hee hee, it'd be so fun to experiment with the source code in these golden oldies.

[utunnels]

I used to make an patch which increased enemy stats in new game+. But I didn't have the patience to test it.
I don't like pure luck based battle, so my ideal solution is to edit each enemy individually, which is quite boring and requires a lot of tests.

In new game+
attack +120
defense +100
hit% +20
evd% +20
magic +30
magic defense +30

[HeadlessFritz]

That'd we quite interesting ! I would put my playthrough on youtube with a challenge like that.

[Bradums]

Oddly enough, I'm replaying Cross (after replaying Trigger) and I thought the exact same thing. I never really noticed before, but after just crushing everything without so much as a need to heal or do much other than attack, I thought, "Wow...I could just mash buttons and win without so much as an issue."

The only somewhat-challenging battles come from Miguel, the Time Devourer, and to a lesser extent: Garai and Dario. I know that the Mama Komodo and perhaps Karsh, Solt, and Peppor should be softballs in the beginning, but...Mama Komodo did a total of 10 damage with me defending to take my time with it, and I nearly crushed Karsh with a single Electrojolt element. It dealt ~50 damage, with my attacks doing between 5-15 compared to their 2-3 with the occasional 5.

[HeadlessFritz]

You know, the mama Komodo's easiness was defendable, because the system is not easy to understand in the beginning. What sucks in my mind is how the rest of the game continue to be like that. As you said, Karsh was a joke. Even with Serge alone, you could have beat them easily. Solt and Pepper hit for a frickin 2, one time per turn. I like these bosses like in FFXII where you're exhausted as hell after one.

The biggest joke in chrono cross to me were the dolls in Terra Tower. Sometimes, I would only use a summon and they died. Else, my Dash n Slash hit for 1500 damage with the mastermune. With that, I could make a doll genocide.

With the superb bell music that plays you would expect a more serious battle. Oh well...