23 years on from its original release, Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition revives one of the true gems of the PS1 era with upgraded visuals and a handful of extras. It’s out on last-gen PS4 and Xbox One machines, plus Switch and PC, with back-compat allowing the game to run on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as well. Regardless of platform though, it’s a pleasure to see one of Squaresoft’s great JRPGs remastered, but it’s certainly not a perfect package. Stark changes have been made to 2D pre-rendered backdrops, changing the look significantly, while the frame-rate is far less consistent than you’d expect from a remaster of a game made four generations ago.
So is the Radical Dreamers Edition the best way to play Chrono Cross, despite these issues, or is it still better to enjoy the original – perhaps augmented with a CRT or an HDMI scaler like a Retrotink 5X Pro?
Before answering that question, let’s take a brief look at what changes have been made. The first thing you’ll notice is that select character models have been upgraded, character art has been redrawn, and backgrounds have been processed with a form of AI upscale. All of these changes can be toggled with a single option in a front-end launcher, between a new and classic modes – but alas, none of them can be toggled individually. It’s all or nothing.
Regardless of which mode you choose, there are universal tweaks to the Chrono Cross’ remaster. Firstly, there’s a change to the iconic opening FMV sequence; a higher-resolution version is now used, with noise removed and clearer text – a very welcome improvement on the PS1 original. However, the downside is the improvements end there, and later FMVs remain raw and untouched. Also unfortunate is that the music in all FMVs is heavily compressed, seemingly presented at a similar quality as the PS1 original. In game? The good news is Yasunori Mitsuda’s beautiful, sample-based soundtrack shines. It remains a true highlight of the Chrono Cross experience, and while the arrangements are left as-is, newly orchestrated tracks are at least added to this remaster’s front-end launcher.