You're not given directions on where to go over half the time, the entire cast is full of cardboard cutout garbage, most of the plot consists of an over-glorified fetch quest, Serge has no character development or reason to be doing ANYTHING, Kid is a stupid brat most of the times, the main villain has no motivation, Disc 2 tries to make the game have plot twist upon plot twist with no correlation or cohesive story connections, they randomly kill off the CT cast for absolutely no frickin' reason at all in the background events, and it served absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
The plot contradicts both itself and Chrono Trigger because:
- the red stone materials were never part of Lavos. This is explicitly shown in Chrono Trigger.
- Serge shouldn't have been able to cross worlds in Lynx's body.
- You never meet the Lynx of your world. It's assumed that he was frozen in the Dead Sea.... too bad that he's not there with the rest of them. I know, I checked.
- The necklace that Kid uses is the same as Marle's. If Schala gave it to Kid and Kid was zapped into the future then how could Marle have ever gotten it? Furthermore, how could the events of Chrono Trigger have ever happened in Chrono Cross if Kid has that necklace?
- Schala has blond hair and wears a white dress. This is an absolutely stupid contradiction that just shows ignorance and laziness.
The suspension of disbelief required is absolutely ridiculous in this game:
- Serge never reacts to any given scenario even when characters ask him too. It's hard to believe that he always reacts in the same shocked way over and over. The Silent Protagonist is a failure in this game because Serge is asked to give his feelings and can only ever reply with "..." as if that's a satisfactory response.
- Kid pulls a knife on the Dragoons who come to take Serge into custody since he's a mysterious intruder. They act as if Kid is in the right when she literally pulls a weapon on the equivalent of police officers.
- Kid uses Viper's daughter as a hostage and yet is somehow said to have 'saved' her. Viper's daughter wouldn't even be in danger if not for Kid literally placing a knife to her throat and using her as a hostage.
- Kid magically forgets the switching of bodies. When next you see her, she's helping Lynx (in Serge's body) to cause a war that's killing innocents by the thousands and comes to literally bomb your small group of escaped refugees with their war ships. Some of the refugees are sick and injured. Somehow Kid is unable to see the difference between a Serge who is amassing a massive army and killing hundreds of thousands of innocents to the Serge that she was camping and sharing stories with in the early parts of the game. All Kid is focused on is murdering Lynx (You in Lynx's body) and doesn't give a damn about the innocent refugees.
- You save a group of Faeries from fire-breathing mechanical Dwarves. You literally stop a genocide. Somehow, the Faeries blame the humans for everything with no explanation on how humanity had anything to do with Dwarves slaughtering Faeries in droves. This is like a sick joke on the very real problems of mass genocide that has unfortunately become more of a problem in recent years.
- Why would Schala save Serge but not a suffering and crying Magus in 600 AD? She saved Serge because she was reminded of Magus... instead of saving the actual Magus. Also, romancing the person who reminds you of your brother is... rather creepy.
Now then, onto Gameplay:
The slow 3 standard attacks makes the game feel slower than other RPG games. The stamina system makes it even more of a drag and the area of effect system just makes the game far too easy. And why're you allowed to run from bosses when it serves no purpose? Or the fact there is no level ups outside of boss battles which makes the entire game even more of a boring chore. Common sense just wasn't factored in when making the game. It's all far too out of the box with no unified theme or even idea of what they wanted for the game.
This is most clear with the cast. Tell me, what in the hell is the point of 43 characters when you only have 3 slots for playable units and one always occupied by the main character? That's just absolutely stupid. There is no nice way to even phrase that. It's just a completely stupid idea with no real thought put into how the game would actually play out.
Lastly, Masato Kato - the creator of Chrono Cross - stole credit for Chrono Trigger from Yuji Horii and Hironbu Sakaguchi. Not only that, he has outright said he hates Yuji Horii for not having 'realistic time travel' when Kato himself went on to make Chrono Cross - which is far, far more unbelievable.
Masato Kato supports child pedophilia too. No, I am not just making this up. He wrote the story of Princess Maker 2. An eroge game that allows the heroine to have sexual relations with her own father. Kato went on to ruin the Mana Series and Ninja Gaiden. He wrote Ninja Gaiden 3. The man is a poison to everything that he works on.
