2022 Games of the Year: Chrono Cross the Radical Dreamers Edition

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Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition is a remaster of the original PS1 game that just released a few weeks ago.  I played the original Chrono Cross when it first came out so I wanted to dip back into it to see if it held up to my memories.

I'm honestly kind of surprised that I stuck with it, finished the whole game, and generally enjoyed the experience.  There's some roughness around the edges and there are a lot of things that wouldn't fly in modern games from a quality of life features perspective, but all of that is because it was a PS1 game and this is just a remaster.

They did end up adding a few things that help if you feel like enabling them.  There's a battle boost, a no encounter mode, an autobattle mode, and (my favorite) the speed up mode.  Speed up mode in particular went a long way towards making this game more acceptable through a modern gaming lens.  I basically had the speed up enabled in every battle and every time I was exploring the overworld.  It helped keep the pace of the game snappy instead of dragging.

For the game itself, it's still Chrono Cross.  I remember liking it when it first came out but most of the details had blurred in my memory with time.  I'm glad I got a chance to revisit it and re-experience all the things I had forgotten.

This is actually ranking fairly high for me and cracked the top five in my running rankings since it resonated in a nostalgic way.  Here's where it landed:

  1. Elden Ring
  2. FFXIV Endwalker
  3. Horizon Forbidden West
  4. Pokémon Legends: Arceus
  5. Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition
  6. Halo Infinite
  7. Vampire Survivors
  8. Triangle Strategy
  9. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
  10. Nobody Saves the World
  11. Unpacking
  12. Total War: Warhammer 3
  13. Tunic

I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone who hasn't already played the original, but can easily recommend it if you have good memories of the original and want to walk down memory lane.

As an added bonus, I listened to the Minnmax deepest dive on the game as I played through and having that feeling of others to play alongside was great!

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