In Reply To #19
for starters, not just the battle system, but the system designed for enemy encounters. no random battles, what you see is what you fight, and at times you get surprised, a lot(on your first playthrough). it's also not an irritation, you end up looking forward to battles because they happen when they do, not every 2 steps.
then there's the double/triple techniques. with the right combination of characters you can do a triple team move on bosses for big damage.
the game is time travel centric. unlike other games where you go back in time once and eventually wind up back in the present, traveling between past, present, and future is a huge part of this game. you even get a flying time machine so you can further explore each era, and easily jump between time periods, when you need to do something in the same spot in a different era. this feature and the enemy encounter system, i think, if re-used would have been all that was really necessary to turn people on to chrono cross.
another aspect of time travel, the present, and 400 years in the past, are so linked that optional actions taken in 600 a.d. affect the year 1000 a.d.
15 different endings depending on when you beat the final boss, usually most are only attainable during a new game+.
it was a really well crafted game that i could continue playing, and this is coming from someone who's burning out on the genre. others i could recommend, that i would still play even now, are the first few suikodens(not that i got anything against 5, it's just too damn long for me),grandia 2(1 and 3 require too much grinding, for different reasons), and brave story on the psp, despite the childish aura it gives off.