Chrono Cross has an excellent story (though parts of it may be a little unapproachable to those unfamiliar with the Chrono Trigger mythos). The narrative is well-written, unpredictable, mysterious, and engrossing. I found myself going back to the game again and again (even on my first playthrough, when I wasn't getting the most out of the battle system) just to see what happened next. Watching the narrative slowly reveal its mysterious and address long-unanswered questions is always enjoyable. However, it sometimes requires you to sit through wordy "all me to explain everything" conversations. There are only a few and they are separated by hours of gameplay, so I didn't particularly mind. Those who are allergic to wordy dialogue, however, might find yourselves tempted to skip through certain conversations. If you are one of these people then please restrain yourself. The story is easily worth this little inconvenience.

The only critiques I have about the story is that parts of it left me baffled (until later, when I played through Chrono Trigger and went "ooohhhh...."), and it's a little weird that most of the characters who join you aren't central to the plot.

Chrono Cross has 45 character that players can go around collecting. While it is fun to collect as many characters as possible (and then get robbed at the end when you realize that you need 3 playthroughs to get them all), most of the characters feel extranuous.

To illustrate this point, I'm going to transcribe what I was thinking when Orcha the chef joined my party:

I had never heard of Orcha before then. I don't know why he tried to stop me from rescuing Riddel. I don't know why he joined me after failing to stop me from rescuing Riddel. To this day, all I understand about him is that he was character #39 on my checklist. As a collectable, he is of some interest. As a character, however, he is completely inconsequential. This may sound like an obscure example, but it isn't. The vast majority of the 45 characters are static, boring, unrelated to the plot, and join your party for no apparent reason. Most of them have interesting personalities and/or funny accents, but that doesn't quite make up for it.

When I finally got them all - and make no mistake, I did get them all - all it really did was give me the satisfaction of completing a giant fetch-and-collect quest. The story remained unchanged, and by then I'd played through three times and was so used to using Serge, Sprigg, and Guile that I pretty much ignored all the new guys anyway. Don't get me wrong, figuring out how to recruit everyone was entertaining, but I can't help but wonder how much more rewarding it would have been if the characters I gathered up had all been interesting.

On the bright side, the characters that are actually important to the story (Serge, Kid, Riddel, Harle, and Lynx to name just a few) do get quite a bit of development. Serge is particularly interesting to watch, since the story delights in unraveling all the mysterious around him very slowly. If only they all could have gotten that much attention...

Spectacular. The scenery and backgrounds in the game are amazingly rich in detail. The CG cutscenes are also amazing, especially when considering that this game predates the Playstation 2.