Trivia / Chrono Cross

• Creator Breakdown: According to Masato Kato, the head writer for Chrono Trigger, Radical Dreamers was influenced by feelings of frustration he had harbored while working on the previous project — this, he claims, influenced the darker tone of Dreamers and subsequently Chrono Cross when compared to the (relatively) lighthearted Trigger.
• Franchise Killer: Although Cross was well-received at the time and a financial success, the considerably more mixed reception in the years after effectively killed the Chrono series. Notably, although Trigger has been ported several times in the years since to several platforms, Cross was only re-released on PlayStation Network in 2011 for the PlayStation 3, and wasn't made available elsewhere for years until its remaster in 2022.
• Late Export for You: The 2022 remaster saw the game released in Europe for the first time, complete with localizations for multiple languages.
• Meaningful Release Date: This game was originally released in Japan in the year 1999, which in this game's predecessor served as the year for The Day of Lavos.
• Multi-Disc Work: The game used two disks, cutting right as a climactic area would be revealed.
• No Export for You: Chrono Cross was never released outside of Japan and North America, which makes the continuity nods in the DS version of Chrono Trigger just plain annoying for everyone living outside those two particular regions. The more general references to Radical Dreamers are also beguiling for everyone outside of Japan, and probably even many people in it.
• Orphaned Series: Chrono Cross was not supposed to be the end of the Chrono series. A sequel, Chrono Break, was planned shortly after Cross's completion and, decades later, it has yet to materialize.
• Popularity Redo: The game borrows elements from Radical Dreamers, originally released in Japanese for the Satellaview console. The Other Wiki states that director Masato Kato did this game as an attempt to "redo Radical Dreamers properly."
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Thanks to some erroneous text from a BradyGames guide, players were led to believe that the Wraith monster would sometimes drop the Ghetz' Shirt, an armor that increased several stats in exchange for giving the wearer several status ailments.
• What Could Have Been: Ye gods. For starters, Magus was supposed to appear in the game, but he was replaced by Guile due to the sheer amount of characters cutting in on his screen time. In what may be an effort to mend his notable absence into the existing product, the added ending in the DS version of Chrono Trigger implies that he may be an amnesiac Magus from either the future or an alternate timeline.
  • According to the Ultimania guide, it was to be rumored that Zoah hid his face because he suffered a horrific war injury, but the truth would've been that he's actually a spying prince from a faraway country and taking a particular interest in Serge. This would've been heavily implied in the Shadow Forest (indeed, the only known contemporary candidate for that certain kingdom is still suggested by the description of the mushroom item - Guardia). This was all axed from the final story.
  • Like many PS1 RPGs, there is a huge Info Dump near the end of the game as the writers tried to get their plot points across before the Cosmic Deadline hit.
  • When Lynx switches bodies with Serge, Lynx was originally intended to get an alternate character portrait to portray the change in mentality, similar to Dark Serge, where his expression looks softer compared to his typical menacing look.
  • There's an unused tech that was intended for a Blue Innate character called "Slots'' that much like Tifa's and Selphie's Limit Breaks in Final Fantasy, would be an ability with a slot reel you spin with the attack & damage being determined by your outcome. General consensus is that this was originally one of Fargo's techs as his Home World version runs a Casino.
• Working Title: The game was called "Project Kid" at one point while in development. This was actually a thing in the game (see the entry in the main page).

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