Chrono Cross Is Getting A Remaster, And Boy Does It Look Rough

This announcement made me so happy! Finally we have an official release of Chrono Cross in Europe. Happy times!

Edit: I politely disagree with this article. I think this game looks gorgeous.

This is what I wanted most, and I got it.

Day One. This is in my Top 5 Games of All Time, and to me, much more enjoyable than its predecessor.

This made my day! Soo ready squeenix...so ready.

Timing is good for me. I just beat Chrono Trigger in January

I've not played the game...but I think it looks fine?

Very much what I'd expect from a remaster of a PS1 game.

I am kind bummed that it is not a full remake, but I am just glad I can finally play this legit without the hassle of importing a PS1.

Isn't this just a port of the originals without any new bells and whistles?

The only real criticism I would have of this is that it seems to retain the choppy frame rate of the originals.

I actually really like the style it went for, it makes me feel...Happy.

When you don't know the difference between a remaster and a remake. You get this article.

I never played the original, and it's definately on my radar.

JRPG fans, we're eating good tonight. So many great JRPG titles announced. Gotta admit, never played Chrono Cross during the PS1 era but it's now my chance to play this on the Switch.

Interesting.... but I won't pay 30 bucks for it

I love the game but how could anyone possibly call this a REMASTER?

For a PS1 game that is pretty much what is expected tbh

it looks fine? reminds me of the ff7-9 rereleases

never finished my PS1 copy, just couldn't find enough to get invested in. all the two-line party members probably didnt help

I think I'll just stick with PS1 Classics copy on Vita. This doesn't look worth the price (unlike Live a Live, which got a massive visual overhaul).

I knew this would come and the fact that they are giving Nintendo fans what PlayStation fans use to enjoy is a good treat. I mean we got SaGa Frontiers, Legend of Mana, Final Fantasy 7-9, and the upcoming Chocobo GP, all which goes back to the PS1 era and all now found a home on Switch. I had a feeling this won't be the end of the classics Square is planning to bring, we'll likely see more PS1 classics like Ehrgeiz, Einhander, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, hopefully Xenogear, Threads of Fate, Brave Fencer Musashi, Vagrant Story, and likely the Parasite Eve series coming soon as well.

... and @KateGray gets to eat her hat, too!

Chrono Cross really didn't age well graphics-wise and has always been a challenge to emulate (for me anyway). So I do appreciate a remaster.

3D sprites? Don’t you mean polygons?

I mean, it still looks a lot better than the PS1 release.
...
I'm ecstatic to see this. I've never actually gone through Chrono Cross. Always meant to, but never got around to it. So getting a chance to go through an enhanced version has me very happy.

Also...regarding Radical Dreamers...it will not be for everyone. It's not so much a "game" as it is an interactive visual novel. But I strongly insist that it's worth experiencing at least once. It's really well-made.

Honestly I'm happy to be able to play this on a modern platform, but yes it does look really rough, at least being widescreen would be appreciated. Clearly almost no resources spent on this project. Understandably even supporting widescreen would probably require reworking it from scratch. Oh well, I'll probably pick it up if they release a physical version, I always wanted to play it even though I've heard it's a lot more hit and miss than Chrono Trigger.

What do you mean it looks rough? As a person who’s played through the original on vita (the psn release) this looks a ton better

Glad I'm not the only one who thought so. And I'm never one to say " wow those graphics though...."

Its a remaster not a full remake like FF7R. So its the same old with some enchantments and higher res. 20$ seems standard price

@Damo depends on who you're asking

If that's a Re-master than I'm Gunga Din.

@Damo Live A Live is a remake. In an entirely new engine.

Do you guys not do any kind of actual research before you post these "articles"? I don't care what they call them, Live A Live is clearly a remake and this is a remaster. It looks like a PS1 game that's been uprezzed. Is it hard to get a job on this site? It shouldn't be if this is the product.

This Article is eh, I think it looks good since its not trying to achieve better graphics, just giving everyone a easier way to play

Apparently this was the Direct where Nintendo ran out of Wii U Games to port to we got a bunch of PS1 and Wii games. 🤣

Really enjoyed this one, played it before CT which may have helped, don't like CT as much. One of my favorite looking games on PS1, still looks good now, and by good I mean basically the same. That opening beach scene along the tidal pools and that music is still 1 of my favorite game opening levels.

Won't be buying this since I still own the disc and a PS1 to play it on but if you like old school JRPG I really enjoyed this one.

I don't get the complaints about the visuals, it looks fine to me. This is what the FFVII-IX remasters look like too, no one complained this much about those.

@Damo In what world is Live A Live not a remake? It's a full HD-2D remake, it looks nothing like the original. Just because it's not a complete FFVII Remake-style overhaul doesn't mean it doesn't count as a remake.

@dustinprewitt it’s 20 bucks not 30

@Damo Actually Live A Live is a remake, since they made it completely HD-2D now. New engine and all = remake. Even if they wouldn't change anything else.

A remaster is a game updated to run on newer hardware, with some minor improvements. This is that.

@ReaperMelia it’s a PS1 game too. Remastering those games won’t be too much different

@Uska I only care if the game runs well. Not how it looks

This article is written to get attention. Guess the author isn’t a good enough writer to get people to read unless he says something inflammatory.

It looks... Impressionistic!

Looks just as good as the FF8 and FF9 remasters to me. Only way it could be better is a complete remake.

@Damo Save it for a soapbox article, this is your opinion man

@Damo What makes you think that Live-A-Life is not a remake? It absolutely is a remake.

The remaster needs a remaster

@Damo They’ve completely redone the pre-rendered backgrounds for Chrono Cross into HD. Which wasn’t done for the Final Fantasy ports. All character models upscaled too. And the music has been remastered. And there’s apparently changes to the battle system. And it included Radical Dreamers. You’re kinda talking out your arse now if you’re claiming it’s just a ‘simple’ up-res.

@ManaOwls been dreaming about this game releasing in Europe for 22 years...

@Sahnec it has the HD characters!

I tried to play it on emulator several times, but never played more than a few hours. I don't think I'll buy this one. I think I've always expected way too much of this game because of the near-perfect Chrono Trigger.

Huh...the visuals looked great to me. Lol. Maybe because I grew up playing it a ton. STOKED!

I’ve been playing straight ports of PS1 games on my PS3 all week and this looks brilliant. This is a very strange complaint article and why it mentions Live A Live at all is lost on me. Does the author want Chrono Cross remade as HD2D? Eh.

This is a remaster. It’s better than a port and less than a remake. I’d rather pay $20 for this than $60 for god knows what, and I’ve already paid $10 for the original on PS3 eshop. While we’re at it give me Brave Fencer Musashi and Parasite Eve.

Gotta respect the game of the author, get people riled up just after a remaster is announced by saying it looks rough when it's clearly sharper than it's ever been.

Well played.

Honestly, it looks quite solid to me. They seem to have done a good job of upscaling the visuals and making things look sharper. I'm most curious to see what they've done with the soundtrack, as I've always loved the OST much more than the game.

Also, this is what Live A Live looked like originally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRop31JcTz8

So yes, definitely a remake.

I don’t think it looks bad at all; it’s a PS1 game! Still have mixed feelings about this one from back in the day, but I think it might be time to give it another go! And on the OLED hells ya

Right? I'm annoyed they kept it 4:3 :/ Other than that, I would really like to try it... but SE is such a dodgy company sometimes. Not sure.

Big thumbs up for the remaster. Thumbs down for the title.

What are you talking about? It looks great!

Nice to know I’m not the only one who thought the title of the article (plus the follow-up comments) was a bit weird.
As for the game itself, I’ve never played the original release, and while I’ve played Chrono Trigger, this seems vastly different to that, so I’m not sure how interested I am (especially when there’s so much other stuff coming out) but it might be worth a try at lesst.
Still, I’m surprised this is happening at all; I got the impression the rumours were actually about the mobile thing they announced a few months back, but instead it seems there really was a proper remaster in development. Go figure.

Looks good to me.

Honestly I think it looks fine. Sort of how I remember it anyway?

New Theory: This is a social experiment designed to test how people can be easily persuaded by flashy news article titles, despite the content being patently wrong.

I think most of us passed.

The remaster was just announced like an hour ago, really clever tactic to say "initial impressions aren't great." They're technically not lying, they could be referring to the initial impressions of themselves or their dog who happened to be watching next to them.

I'm sorry but a remaster needs a widescreen fix and higher resolution textures/models. This looks like it's a modified version of the original running in some sort of emulation engine with a little ai upscaling. You may as well just play the original on Duckstation for similar results.

Bad take, it looks really good. I've never played Chrono Cross and this looks like the perfect opportunity to try it out.

It’s not Trigger-but then again, what is? But it’s a great game and I’m so excited to be able to play it again! I did think this would be in todays direct, but thought it would be out sooner. Still, not too far away!

@Deady it is 20 dollars haha

Disagree on it looking rough.

I don't think a game like Chrono Cross was ever going to get some full remake with vastly improved graphics. Just glad this is available on a modern Nintendo system.

??? It looks totally fine. It's a PS1 game.

It looks fine for a $20 remaster of a very rough looking PS1 game

Nice, now we just need Chrono Trigger re-release.

I don't really like how this game looks, but that is due to me not liking this PS1 style that the game originally has already.

That being said, I still don't agree with the article. For a remaster this is pretty much exactly what I expect and I may very well buy it, since I never played Chrono Chross and this seems like a perfect opportunity. Certainly better than playing the original (well unless this remaster has problems we don't know of yet, of course).

Couldn't they just re-touch the original code? I don't even know how different it is to the original game, I'll look it up. I'm really interested in this story if it's on the same universe as Chrono Trigger.

Why are you comparing a remake to a remaster?
Of course Live A Live will look better than a faithful remaster of a PS1 era game.
This whole update comes off as very unprofessional.

@HeeHo yeah.

@Damo Live A Live 100% is a remake unless the SNES was capable of way more than I realise.

Not too long ago everyone on here were mad at square enix for releasing cloud ports now everyone is defending them 🙃

@Would_you_kindly One thing has nothing to do with the other. Hate for Cloud games on Switch is beyond just Square Enix.

I also wouldn't say people are defending. This is more like aggressively telling someone they need new glasses while they're driving recklessly.

@anoyonmus so that upgrades my interest from "hard no" to "soft maybe"..... perhaps when it goes on sale down to 15 or 10.

@Astral-Grain fair enough , I wouldn't want to support square enix anyway because of their stance on nft's but then again the only IP I care about from them is tomb raider

Bad or not, I'm getting it. I'm a huge fan of this game, and the two Chrono games. Instant buy for me.

@Troll_Decimator
The SaGa frontier did use widescreen with pre rendered backdrops (outside of the world map screens which had border art) so it does seem doable.

my main issue from the video is the framerate which while a problem in the original PSone game is something which shouldn't really be happening on a system released over 20 years after the ps1

@anoyonmus yeah I checked the listing before I posted. d: I’m really looking forward to this. Haha

Hopefully this leads to a Trigger port too.

gonna nab this on switch an xbox. today was just an explosion of more of my childhood.

@Aurumonado same haha

@Mgalens Yeah, I don't know, I'm glad to play it on modern hardware but it could be better, still better than nothing. I'll take it. Keep in mind each game has its own technical difficulties for going widescreen, like, especially back then they didn't really make games with the thought that they will need to release them again in 20 years, so the code is often very very rough.

@Troll_Decimator
yeah can definitely see how older games especially psone/n64/saturn can be very finicky.

im just hoping the final game runs smoothly since that was one of the issues i had back on psone too. (it was noticable back then considering outside of battle games like the FF series were generally smooth)

You just always know if an “article” was written by NL’s worst writers… and this site has two of them lol

I think its awesome that they went a more traditional old school route with this game. Not everything needs to be fancy new shiny graphics. Sometimes less is more.

Will import a physical copy later on. I love CC and already played Radical Dreamers years ago, but this time I need to secure it in a physical version

@Deady IT NEEDS TO.

I hope it does. I might Chrono Cross tbh if it runs well. Always wait for reviews tbh

@dustinprewitt square enix games do go down in price quite often interestingly enough, so yeah maybe wait.

I will wait for reviews tbh

@Purgatorium unfortunately a lot of PS1 games don't age well in recent times.

SNES games on the other hand age relatively alright

I've seen worse remasters and worse looking games that came out this generation.

Instead of announcing the game the Nintendolife writer editorializes their own opinion about graphics then acts like everyone would agree with that assessment.

The writing on this article needs better graphics and words and ideas. Toss the original for a full re-write.

This is exactly what you’d expect a remaster to look like. This isn’t a remake. It’s taking the same engine making it run on newer hardware and upping the resolution and possibly cleaning up some textures. That’s all anyone wants. That’s all they did for FF7, 8, 9 etc.

Given what happened when SE tried to improve FF6 for mobile this is all we want from them!

Nobody cares about the graphics. The highlight of this game is the soundtrack. Sure, we'd all love modern remasters of the PSOne era final fantasies and Chrono cross, but square is too busy releasing a portion of ff7 remake every 12 years to do anything else. Their lazy ports of old games must fund their ff7 remake development costs. Still, at least we can play these remasters and remember how awesome the company once was.

The models look incredible when upscaled and the backgrounds are drop dead gorgeous. Thank goodness these comments are showing more sense and taste. It doesn't seem to be a Final Fantasy VII, VIII or IX situation where no upscaling was done on the backgrounds to make everything look like ass.

This is exactly what this game should look like and its just as gorgeous as it was on PS1.

I don't think it looks rough at all! Although, the issue might be in the marketing. Remaster is a stretch. This looks like a port. Emulate this with increased resolution settings and it'll look pretty much just like this. I'm not saying that all they did is wrap this in an emulator. The FF IX release has a similar look, and I know they did the up-res for that themselves. Either way, I'll take it. I'm running through Chrono Trigger now and planned to play Cross after. This looks better than my digital PS3 copy.

I hate to speculate but after Live A Live I am wondering if Squeenix is going to hit their snes catalog with the HD-2D makeover. Fingers crossed for FF 6 (and the whole DQ back catalog or at least 4-6).

@Ryu_Niiyama well DQ 3 is getting the HD-2D remake so there is that.

@Kisame83

New Features in the Remastered Edition
・3D models converted to HD
・Refined character illustrations
・Higher-quality background music
・Switch enemy encounters on or off
・Background filter feature
・Battle enhancement features to make combat easier
・Auto-battle function
・Switch between imitation pixel font and HD font
・Change screen resolution

RADICAL DREAMERS - Le Trésor Interdit -
"RADICAL DREAMERS - Le Trésor Interdit -" was released in 1996 as a standalone game, and has not been easily accesible for play in recent years. Players can experience the story that went on to become the basis for CHRONO CROSS in an audio novel format. Here, an alternate story of the RADICAL DREAMERS, a group of three thieves - Serge, Kid and Magil - unfolds in a parallel world.

Check the Eshop. Pretty much a remaster i guess. It is remastered but since its a PS1 game, it isn't really gonna look too different.
Sadly many PS1 games don't age well

I did have this game on my ps1 back in the day. So there’s some nostalgia I’ll say yup

One is a remake & this is a remaster. Ofc the remake will look better...

I don’t care how it looks. I already have it preordered.

It’s my favorite game from Square’s Golden Age on the PS1.

I’m ready to play through it again.

@BlackenedHalo

Wait Europe never got Cross????

Christ I never realized how lucky I am to be an American. I still have my original black label PS1 copy.

@kalosn

The events of Trigger play a HUGE role in Cross’s story. You don’t see it at first, but by the end all of the game it all makes sense… Well I will say the actual ending doesn’t make much sense but trust me, it’s a wild fun ride.

@anoyonmus

3D PS1 games aged pretty poorly.

Thankfully, the 2D games aged gracefully. I want a remaster of Saga Frontier 2. The water color backgrounds were jaw dropping back in the day.

@TheRedComet haha true enough.

SOTN for example looks pretty good all these years

@anoyonmus

That’s a real beauty. When it came out it was state of the art. SOTN and Megaman X4 did a great job integrating 3D objects into a 2D playfield.

In all honesty, I wish more PS1 games had went that route. It would have aged a lot better.

That said, there are some absolutely banging 3D PS1 games, and I personally think it aged better than the N64.

@JJtheTexan Looks like I should play it for the first time. Never played this or Trigger but I hope trigger gets ported next

@TheRedComet yeah same

Now if only SOTN comes to something besides mobile, I can sell my PlayStation.

This may be a bit controversial, but I do actually agree with the headline, though only to a point, and with the caveat that this will probably be the best remaster from Square-Enix for a PS1 game. I find PS1 games to look atrocious when given a render resolution bump, and while the ability to use the original assets is incredibly appreciated, it doesn't mean much unless we can have it rendered at a low resolution too.

As for everyone saying that the FF7-9 remasters look like this too: you're right! It's why I basically only recommend the PS1 versions (though FF9 has some good mods on PC).

@ManaOwls same here mate !

Yeh, I like Chrono Trigger but never cared to try Chrono Cross. This doesn't change my mind.

"And Boy Does It Look Rough"

Common, what did you expect, it's a PS1 remaster for crying out loud We all know that this is running in some sort of emulator rendering at a higher resolution and enhancements on top.

It's what Square style do. They didn't save sourcecode from back in the day.

It's not like they would put resources into decompiling this title for a remaster. It wasn't even THAT succesful.

It actually looks better than what I would have expected.

@Damo I am 99% sure that it's not a port but some sort of emulation with upscaling and patched in assets and overlayed things such as portraits and text. Similar to how the other Square Enix "Remasters" work.

In that sense, the definition remaster, does apply. Remaster simply means the same game but enhanced.

The term comes from the music and film industries. In music for instance a remaster is basically just improving the sound quality by taking the original instrument tracks and doing a better job at mixing and mastering them (Usually using better tools). It rarely means that the artist has to record anything new.

Looks about the same as the Final Fantasy remasters. So yeah. The framerate in the trailer is perhaps the most questionable part, though. It's been way too long since I've played it (and even then it was only briefly) so I can't tell how it compares, though.

Either way. I'm excited to get to give it a proper go, finally. After all these years.

@Damo with all due respect, you put more effort into this comment than the actual article you published, which was tagged as "News." But since a small part of the direct had this much engagement, I guess you could say mission accomplished.

The game looks fine to me. Already preordered. So excited.

Yea ports, remasters and remakes are all different and it would be easy for those in the industry to learn the difference. You can also port and then tweak. Come on guys this isn’t Kotaku.

Also good to see it coming to Xbox!

This game is amazing. I have it for the Vita. I’ll be picking it up it’s a Remaster and so what. It’s a good game and most everyone gives ChronoTrigger the title of greatest RPG of all time so you all should give this a go. As great as Chrono trigger is, I like this game a little better.

It looks just fine to me?

Ill correct the start of this article for you:

"PlayStation JRPG and Chrono Trigger sequel Chrono Cross has had its much-rumoured remaster confirmed today, and the initial impressions aren't great (for us/writer of the article)"

Why write something in a way that'll have people believe the actual initial impression isn't great, just because you don't think it is personally.

@sanderev If you're gonna make smart-ass comments, you should definitely use spell-check.

@Swizze It's his article, his name is on it...so it's pretty obvious whose opinion it is. Stating the "for us/writer of the article" part is redundant.

@anoyonmus sorry I wasn’t clear. I didn’t include DQ3 outright because I know it’s on the way. I would love to see all the pre ps 1 DQ games re done. Right now the only system you can play all of them is the 3ds.

@BloodNinja That's fine. He can give off a negative impression to people about the game in the title alone. Just like I can also say I think its wrong to be worded like that.

@Swizze But he didn't word it in an incorrect way, so saying it's wrong is....heh, wrong

Shame it looks a bit choppy. I recently played a PS2 game on my PS3 and the PS3 has this "smoothing" option that made the game a lot less choppy and more pleasant to look at.

Seems like it wouldn't bee too difficult to add such a smoothness filter to this game?

Ah well.

Not sure if I will get it. I owned the original, never got far into it. I bought Legend of Mana and enjoyed it for a while, and I regretted getting the Crystal Chronicles remaster as well, so...

But I do applaud them for releasing this. I am more excited about Live A Live and Front Mission so Square is still getting some of my money.

Am I the only one who thinks this looks great ?

It looks amazing for a PS1 game and much better than the FF remasters imo, I just beat Chrono trigger last year but I was put off by the battle system in chrono cross and I heard it was a bit of a mess. I think I’ll definitely be picking up this game

Did they seriously not fix those awful frame rates? Lesigh.

I played the game all the way through for the first time last year, it had its moments and the soundtrack was nice but I don't think it is something I would want to touch again.

Hmm I thought the game looked incredibly janky and rough. But that being said this isn't a game for me, so if those who it is for are excited and don't feel that way, who am I to judge? I'm glad a lot of people are happy about it's announcement!

@Browny WOW, that's some damn big shoes to fill! My favorite RPG guy isn't as mad about this one (it's his nemesis.) So it'll be fun to finally get to play it myself!

One thing is for sure: it's soundtrack is one of the best ever made, so I'm going to enjoy myself regardless of what I think about gameplay and story!

Blech. This game is bloody awful. Poor choice, Squeenix.

Lmao! The irony of a Nintendo site saying that any game looks "rough" is genuinely hysterical to me. Even funnier that so far they're the only site to say anything even remotely negative. Thankfully if the writer checks the comments they will see how mind numbingly stupid this take is. Unfortunately, people like this don't read criticisms. They're too busy smelling their own facts.

Oh and P.S. anyone with eyes can tell you it looks gorgeous.

Ah, another article that doesn't understand the difference between remaster and remake

very excited to replay this remastered version of Chrono Cross

@Damo Live A Live is absolutely a full remake, they are just not completely reimagining it. It's from the ground up, not somehow procedurally generated from the 2D content, which to me would put it more towards remaster territory. The choice of art style doesn't make it less of a remake. Obviously Chrono Cross is just a remaster, or enhanced port.

I've been playing this off and on for the last couple years. I absolutely love this game, and just because it looks the same as it did on the PS1 doesn't make it bad. In fact, I'm glad it's basically the same game. That's what I want to play, and it looks great! I might've started this on the PS1, but I'm going to finish it on the Switch.

I was waiting for the reveal from the original 4:3 to widescreen remaster the entire clip.

No complaints though... never like Chrono Cross besides the OST (GOAT) Front Mission and Live-A-Live are the best surprises I could hope for:) Bahamut Dragoon 2D-HD and Einhander HD remakes next!!!

@garfreek
The game just holds a special place in my heart, a combination of the fantastic music and the point in my life where I first played the game. Is it better than Trigger? I could write papers arguing that it is and isn't; however, I won't trash either game because I do love both.

I just adore Cross a lot more than I do Trigger, and part of that does stem from having played Cross first.

@Thesharkfromjaws

I played the game a ton and I can verify that the framerate on Chrono Cross was pretty bad.

And it was weird too. Most of Square’s RPGs had decent frame rates. I mean Vangrant Story didn’t but it was also a far more ambitious game than Cross visually; it was fully rendered in real time with polygons.

But Cross? It’s all over the place from a performance standpoint.

I disagree with this article and all of these opinions as well… the game looks fine and appears to have some options for modifying visuals. Digital Foundry infecting opinions again with their undying retro love, huh? Looks fine to me man.

This game was never good to begin with. I hope it's less boring on Switch.

@Damo They're charging $20, but it's in line with comparable Final Fantasy ports/remasters/whatever of the same generation. And cheaper than their Mana and Saga efforts, for whatever reason. I don't think it's unfair, for the value of the game (however old it may be). It's 1/3 the price of a new AAA game. I mean, Kemco titles on mobile sell for $8, and Chrono Cross is a drastically more enriching experience than any of those...I'd say than almost all of those combined. And those tend to go for $15+ when they come to console lol. I know value is subjective, but to me this is fine. If you want CC for $10 you can get it on PSN (assuming you have a PSP, Vita, or PS3) with no enhancements. Or just emulate it and crank the graphics up to 1080 or 1440 if you don't mind that option. But this also comes with Radical Dreamers, and looking more closely at the trailer that actually is something I'd have spent $10 on standalone anyway. I've spent that or more on visual novels over on Steam, you know? It's worth it to me to see RD officially localized for the first time and compare to the ancient fan translation that's circulated forever. And the font looks readable, while the original release is NOT easy on the eyes haha

It's great to see this game coming out on the Nintendo Switch. Finally!

I'm excited it's going to exist, and I'm a bit disappointed we can't get an HD remake version, but I think that's also getting too high hopes, at least for now. Still, this doesn't look bad to me, as it IS a PS1 game, and I really enjoyed Chrono Trigger. I know this game is hugely different, but having never played it, I'm glad I can now have the chance to on the Nintendo Switch.

@Rob13 A 4:3 aspect ratio at sub 30 fps is unacceptable in 2022 for a paid re-release I’m sorry. Especially when it looks fantastic on emulators.

I think this looks fine. It's still one of the better looking PS1 games, but it's still a PS1 game. And I'm fine with the decision to not go full remake. Squeenix has better candidates for that treatment (cough cough FFIX).

Never finished it back in the day, and never got a chance to play Radical Dreamers, so I might pick this up.

This looks MUCH much better than something like the Saga Frontier remaster does. That thing looked much worse than the original, it looks like a mobile game. This Chrono Cross one though looks very close to the original PS1 version, so it's much better looking. I never got the chance to play Chrono Cross, and Chrono Trigger is hands down the best RPG ever made. And so I'm glad I'll finally get to play this sequel. I've got an open mind, I know some people actually PREFER this to chrono trigger. It could turn out that I like this more too. Either way I'm sure I'll love it

@anoyonmus I always say the only games that aged well from that era are horror games. The jankiness makes the whole system seem haunted.

Shouldn't this be a collection with the whole series?

Without the first game, this feels really odd...

We are criticising the work of SE as being lazy? Might want to take a look at the company thos website is mainly focused on author

Wait, where those tweets added in retrospectively? @Damo

If so do you really think that's an ok thing to do after being called out for writing an opinion piece instead of a news article? If that's your opinion you would own up to it and not retrospectively hide behind other people.

@Damo Well, to be honest, I think the original game looks fantastic. PS1 games are honestly the peak of 3D graphics to me. I have no issue with the graphics being blocky, my issue is purely in that they get ruined when rendered at high-resolution.

Everyone that is saying "it looks fine"

you've seen a much lower resolution trailer. But I guess playing it on switch it'll be a low resolution anyways I think the quality of upscale is a larger issue when playing it on PC 1440 or 4k monitors/televisions on PC or console. I think on switch it'll be fine handheld and docked only look slightly blurry.

It'll look terrible everywhere else though. Like, the game actually looks better in a PSX emulator iwth perspective correction and hi resolution rendering than seeing this ai upscale and over softening of image.

@Browny that's a sufficient hype that I'm going in blank! Just can't wait to finally play this after waiting since 2007 (the first time I played the first chrono trigger! 😁)

This looks exactly 💯 💯 💯 the way I expected this remaster (it's not a remake people) to look. You are all being wayyy too hard on it. I am stoked to play one of my favorite games again with Brady Games strategy guide in hand. Seriously tho learn the difference between remaster and remake and life will be easier for everyone.

@ManaOwls Agreed. This is exactly what I wanted, an exact rerelease with slightly higher res models.

@GamerDad66 I think it's a good way to go, personally. I love Chrono Cross, but it's really not much of a sequel to Chrono Trigger at all, and they are including Radical Dreamers, which I never, ever thought we'd get in any official capacity. I don't want people going into this, playing Chrono Trigger then getting extremely disappointed with Cross. Best way to go is to release this and Chrono Trigger later. (If we're lucky)

I think the only comment from the article that I agree with is compare to moguri mod. That is a fan made project which looks amazing and really is the least they could do for their remasters.

I mean its a remaster... Not a remake. Why do people hate it so much? XD Also there's no official announcement about its having 60fps yet or no. Calm down.

Look at LiS remaster, it basically the same.

People's opinions on this on Twitter are subjective garbage, either use a PS1 or shut up lol

someone already mentioned it, but it is kind of embarrassing that the response to overwhelming agreement that the headline was kind of exaggerating was "let's add twitter people who agree to the article"

compare to: http://web.archive.org/web/20220209234443/https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/02/chrono-cross-is-getting-a-remaster-and-boy-does-it-look-rough

As long as the Remaster looks as good or better on a 4k tv and switch screens I remember it looking on a CRT I'll be happy.

Retro games used dithering and exploited the inadequacies of composite video to a CRT's advantage where the low bandwidth made games look better on composite video than it did on component or HDMI. Having PS1 graphics blown up to 4K Lcd today just makes the game look ugly. So all I want is the game to look good on my current tv

@Purgatorium try Duckstation. I downloaded it on off the PlayStore (it's on PC as well of course) after this announcement and ran my copy of Cross (I ripped my own disc long ago, emu police, stand down lol) at 1440p to compare to this trailer. Ran great. Cross used to be notoriously hard to emulate, but that hasn't been an issue for a bit.

@Kisame83 Thanks of the tip! I can run it smoothly now. It's just the difficulties in the past always stopped me from doing it, then I'd look into it again a few years later.

Finally having a working emulator I was actually about to dive into it soon, then the rumours started swirling of a remaster / release. I'll wait and see how badly Square Enix screws this up.

I love this game, the overworld theme for another world is my favourite track from any game ever

What trailer did you see? 👀

@Purgatorium I'm in the same boat! I've been tearing through a replay of Trigger (settled into the mobile version for convenience), with intent to play Cross next. I have it ready to go, but now with this coming in less than two months...

@nessisonett Arse? Haha is "Kid" writing in the comments now? Bravo 👏 that was good

@MS7000 I am kind bummed that it is not a full remake

Did you want it take a decade, come out in multiple parts and cost multiples of $60 ($70 for Playstation people)?

@Damo sounding a bit ignorant here. It's a new engine, same one as octopath. New engine = remake

@Crono1973 Of course not; that's a loaded question. But you have games like Trials of Mana that got remakes without the stupid segmenting they are doing for Final Fantasy VII. Would of been nice for Chrono Cross to get the same treatment. Especially since it would of been a good oportunity to gauge interest for a sequel in the series, or maybe even a remake of Chrono Trigger.

That said, I have not played this before due to it never being released on Europe, so I am excited to finally play this.

@MS7000 Like Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Cross is a large PS1 game, Trials of Mana was an SNES game. A full remake would have likely taken years.

For $20, I'm pretty happy with what I've seen so far. It'll look great on the OLED screen

@Crono1973 "Large PS1 game" doesn't mean much. The problem FF7 has is it is not just the original game, but Crisis Core and Advent Children and other aspects I am probably forgetting which Nomura is trying to cram into the remake. Cross does not have that problem. I doubt a Cross remake would take anywhere near the length of time to develop as FF7 Remake Part 1. Not to mention that progress on the FF7 remake was scrapped and development stalled multiple times from what I recall.

@Damo

"Chrono Cross is Getting a Remaster"
is a news headline

"Chrono Cross is Getting A Remaster, and Boy Does It Look Rubbish"
is an unwelcome opinion masquerading as a news headline. And you can save it for the editorials, yeah?

Not sure why you guys even have a "soapbox" subsection if you are going to try to pass off stories like this as news.

I've never noticed so much defensive 'tude coming from an editor in the comments before and its a turnoff, tbh. Plus, your readers have a point, maybe you should consider it. like, what are you even doing?

Trying to be constructive, Thanks! 🤙

@MS7000 At the very least, it would take a year or two to remake the game even if they added no extra content AND then it may not run on the Switch. Just be happy it’s coming soon and that it’s only $20.

This game has one of the best battle systems of any JRPG ever, and for that alone I loved the game.

Also, as most said, I think this version looks fine.

@Crono1973 Just be happy it’s coming soon and that it’s only $20.

When you first replied to me, you clearly didn't bother reading the rest of my first comment:

"...but I am just glad I can finally play this legit without the hassle of importing a PS1."

Get off your high horse.

I am happy and don't think it looks rough. It isn't a remake, but I am in, since Chrono Trigger is one of my top 20 favorite games of all time.

The article is bad, but not exceptionally so by online journalism standards.

The author's doubling-down and attempted defenses in the comments, though. Yikes.

The game looks fine.

I see you guys still have ***** articles and authors who will fight with people who disagree.

@Specter_of-the_OLED although they aren't square games, the switch also got the crash and spyro remakes. So much nostalgia!

I am Chrono CROSSED about this remaster.