I can't remember having any issues with the combat; it certainly wasn't too challenging so I just treated it similar to Pokémon's combat where you kinda just spam your strongest moves; point being I don't remember any of the status effects but I do remember the damaging skills. A big thing to note is that much of the playable cast are either secret or depend on which of the three routes you take in the beginning. Whose story did you choose? I find it strange that you didn't find any characters to even look interesting, when the instant I found Guile, I knew I wanted him on my team. The instant I got him, I made him my leader and never looked back. Honestly, the game is basically Pokémon with characters more on the human side, and that's the main draw for me as I love large varieties and diversities. That's why it appeals to me; not that it's an amazing game, but it has a big draw for me personally being the large variety and choice options, and the secret aspects I mentioned earlier were done amazingly. I could go on and on about why this is good, but character limits and time consumption and such.

I understand the dialogue isn't too heavy as it's just too much work to make it all meaningful with so many choosable characters. Personally though, I felt that it's not too different from the norm. Unless the dialogue is /really/ good, I tend to not char about it either. Chrono Trigger was great in this aspect from what I remember, but many other games fall into sticking with stereotypes even if they're slightly more fleshed out, not just the japanese ones. In fact, I find the western failures to be more insulting just because they try to imply their characters are deeper whereas they still fall into the same tropes. Definitely a weak point of the game but it didn't bother me too much, but I understand the dislike here.

Serge does suffer from the Vaan-syndrome, where he kind of is just there in all the plot scenes but doesn't add anything to them like Vaan did in FF12. I honestly can't remember the boss dialogue too much to know what that's like, though; I played years ago.

I do remember the combat getting more complex after a while, and it did take a long time to reach. How far have you gotten? You could name a big thing that just happened and I'll know if I got that far myself. I can't remember playing 30 hours in, but I did get to a point where there was a big change that I assume you haven't hit yet so I might've gotten past where you are now.

Cheers!

I was just browsing some other members and decided to add a few people who had interesting looking collections!

Happy 8 year anniversary!

I'm a little shocked to see that you aren't enjoying Chrono Cross at all, as I found it charming from the get go, but I can kind of understand. I only made it about 1/3 into the game before I stopped so I'm no expert on it anyway. I really liked the large cast of playable characters, but personally my favorite aspects were the little things. The game has secrets that are fun to discover that you don't really see in future RPGs, and they remind me of the charm Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG had. For example, there was one guy I spoke to that didn't want to give me something, so I pestered him and pestered him, and after about five to ten times of talking to him, he said I was too persistent and gave me what I wanted. There are a lot of little secrets like that throughout the game and I'd be surprised if they weren't designed by Squaresoft members that worked on Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger. I'm not to judge though; maybe there is something to the game, or maybe I've just been deprived of the classic RPG feeling and nostalgia of the little touches took over and made me like it more than I otherwise would've. I hope you eventually find something to like in the game, but really if you're not having fun at all, there's nothing wrong with putting it away for something you would enjoy instead.

Happy backloggiversary!

I've been meaning to ask you this, but I keep forgetting. Have you ever heard of a PC game called The Space Bar? It's a gruesome adventure game where you play as a detective and go to an alien bar in space to solve...some crime...about something...I don't really know, I never got far or understood much of it as a kid and haven't seen my copy since. Since you're all about sci-fi and adventure games, I'm wondering if you've ever played it or are interested in doing so. Sadly I have no idea how good it actually is, though.

A strange side note, I remember seeing John DiMaggio in the credits (voice of Bender, Jake from Adventure Time, Gilgamesh in modern FFs). I tried looking through Youtube vids to find what character he voiced, but had no luck finding his distinct voice. It's an old game (1997 I believe?), so it may have been one of his earlier, lesser-known roles.

Hey! Thankyou so much for accepting my Multitap request! I am a huge nerd for the Megaman series so looking at your page puts me in my happy place, haha. I also enjoy reading the reviews you've made! :'DDD