Chrono Cross Remaster Update Coming Later This Month, Promises "Framerate Improvements"

They're changing game mechanics?

I have a question for people who are more familiar with Chrono Cross than I.

Does Pip behave the same way in the remake as he does in the PlayStation 1 original? Is this a bug fix, or are they actually updating the mechanics? Why would they feel the need to alter gameplay mechanics for just one character like this, but keep the entire rest of the game faithful to PS1?

But didn't the remake look like psychedelic AI dog pizza mashup art?

This is great news. The frame rate was so bad it gave me a headache. It was much worse than the original, which at least had a more consistent fps.

@Fizza Ha, yeah, too true. I almost did a double-take upon seeing it.

@EarthboundBenjy pip is notoriously badly designed in that a new player will almost certainly botch him. His evolved forms can be done at the wrong times which can make him miss growth stats or even his level 7 tech altogether. There's some glitches with his elements, which is what I assume they're fixing and not the mechanics of his growth. But it's not like Pip is all that great anyway, he's one of the most throwaway of the bunch even navigating the weirdness.

What a meh remaster. Visual updates that didn't need doing, bad frame rates, and really no useful updates at all. The Vita is still the best way to play Chrono Cross.

@Coalescence well yes, but it's only in english. I think that a great pro of this remastered is that is translated into other 4 languages. And have Radical Dreamers too, still in 5 languages.

Just release Trigger uggghhhh ... 😄

This is fantastic news.

Often for me when it comes to classic games the ones which are harder to go back to are the ones which pushed the psone/N64 to their limits at the expense of performance (banjo tooie on n64 would be another example which is one of the reasons i enjoyed the xbox version) so i was dissapointed that the remaster of CC didnt fix that aspect.

way back when when Chrono cross first came out, I pre-ordered it through the mail because it would come with a special statue - which of course had the case of aforesaid special statue with a dent in it when it finally arrived, because that's how those mostly import game specialty shops used to ship things.

I still have the game, and somewhere around the house is the statue in it's original dented clear case --gave it to my partner of nearly 10 years now way back when I realized her and I valued these sort of things kind of equally.

all else being equal, I would have bought her the switch version almost from the moment it came out, had it not been for the user community that warned me what a horrible port thing was.

remember, I still have the original.

most people don't.

I really hope the port gets fixed, as if you don't read the user reviews of places like metacritic, you don't realize how damning the damage actually is. almost no professional reviewers cover patches after the initial review

It's a game I would be really interested in, but after another recent experience with a merely upscaled "remaster" (Blade Runner) I can't bring myself to playing it. Blade Runner was such a mess and disappointment, the images barely intelligible.

I'm a huge fan of Chrono Trigger, but I never played this. I may have to give it a look.

It took them this long to finally fix the game? Even if they fix it now, the physical version would still forever be garbage.

Glad they’re paying attention to this game. The new version is serviceable, but it really does need frame rate stabilization. If it’s anything like the iOS version or Steam version of Chrono Trigger, then at least I can feel confident they won’t leave it alone until it’s done well. Chrono Trigger on those platforms went from being basic mess, to becoming quite enjoyable.

@canaryfarmer Right? It still blows my mind that this exists on switch and Trigger doesn’t. I hope that Square is working on a HD-2D remaster of some sort, then I will forgive them this blatant transgression 😂

Took them long enough lol

@mikegamer at least they will release a patch some games never got patched..

Oh cool, i'll re-install it when this patch drops. I bought it but...yeah, port has problems and I dropped it like a rock.

@mikegamer It's almost as though game development can take time. Depending on the problem it can be surprisingly hard to fix some things without causing problems elsewhere in the code. Quality is more important than speed.

As someone who never played the original, the Switch version seems A-OK to me. Just switch to the original graphics and it's a pretty pretty game. Wouldn't want it to look non-PS1-y anyway.

It's about TIME!! Lmao. Sadly I beat the game already. But atleast on a 2nd playthrough it won't be so clunky & laggy.

Maybe they will surprise us and add Chrono Trigger on the update.

@Serpenterror you say it like you can't download the patch.

I'm tempted now, if it's a big improvement. Might still wish list it, and grab it on sale.

@PinderSchloss the framerate issues go away if you put it in "classic mode"
I noticed it right away and people told me I was crazy - that it played fine - it did not play fine.
but I'm glad they're fixing it

@ElRoberico Yes, cause the patch is not on the cartridge. Let's say if the next Nintendo console happen and Nintendo choose not to offer transfer to the new system then five years from now they close down the online eShop for Switch like what they did to the Super Famicom, N64, Wii and Wii U, anyone who bought the cartridge version second hand won't get access to the patch cause server to download it doesn't exist anymore. There is also no way to transfer the patch legally to another device since the patch itself is also tie to the Switch account.

Fix the censoring and I'll give it a look.

@MJF I know, but I really wanted to play the remastered version and that was just impossible for me. I considered double dipping on PS5, but that might not even make a big difference.

sweet! I don't know what it is about the current janky frame rate, as soon as I fire it up and the frame rate starts dipping, I immediately start falling asleep. I haven't been able to play this game longer than a half hour without dozing off, which is crazy because I played the heck out of the original release without issue.

@Shonasof And yet modding had it fixed in a few weeks. Strange, that.

@MJF I mean, you are better than them, and they know it.

@mikegamer Across all platforms? (kind of important) I was one of those modders. The mods improved framerates on average, but weren't always stable (kind of important), Getting the patches for all of the platforms tested and verified by the store owners can also take time.

The game is a multiplatform emulation solution with janky hacked enhancements on top trying to be stable on modern systems. The fact that it's improvable at all without breaking too much under the hood is amazing. Even PSX emulation that's been developed for years has trouble enhancing PS1 games without boatloads of game specific hacks to make them work and keep them running as intended. And we sure as hell weren't able to fix everything to a satisfactory level.

But you do you go on acting entitled like they were just lazy about getting out a collection of fixes when you expected them to.

@Shonasof My, aren't we testy, you seem upset, just because you're a mod programmer doesn't give you the right to be a conceited, sanctimonious punk. The game was released in a garbage state on day on, stop defending bad "ports".
This "remaster" is a joke, the backgrounds are a mess, there's no PGXP to fix the subpixel precision/polygon warping, the framerate is worse than the OG PS1 version. And yet, you're defending their using a bad emulator? You do do, buddy.

Good day.

@ElRoberico I wouldn't go that far. I produce music so I pay attention to the fine details to a possibly problematic extent.

@PinderSchloss well the update is live!