Pushed to the Edge
Cross Edge tries valiantly to be all things to all fans of the series it crosses over, and in the end satisfies none of them.
Published: July 31, 2009
I am going to preface this review by saying that I am a diehard fan of Japanese RPGs. I’ve played (and enjoyed) all of Gust’s localized games (the Atelier and Ar Tonelico series, for example), in addition to more widely acclaimed gems such as Persona 4 and Final Fantasy XII. I grew up learning to read with Final Fantasy IV -- so you get the picture: I was raised an avid RPG gamer. Unfortunately, some games are just so poorly assembled that no amount of blind genre-love could possibly save them. Even more unfortunately, Cross Edge is one such game.
The game starts out standard enough -- after a fairly no-frills animated intro you are dropped into the game and asked to choose a difficulty. Varying amounts of data (character levels, items, skills, etc.) will transfer between new game saves depending on what difficulty you are playing the game on. This is a nice spin on the New Game+ approach, but I honestly am at a loss for who would willingly subject themselves to running through this game multiple times. After fiddling around with the game options (both Japanese and English voice tracks are present), I was welcomed with the familiar music that seems to populate the more obscure Japanese RPG tier (Gust/Idea Factory/Compile Heart games). Even the sprite work looked to be reminiscent of other titles, which is excusable since the art direction in these games always have a certain (if not clichéd) charm to them.
What I wasn’t able to excuse were the graphics used for enemies in battle. Not only are some of the enemy battle sprites ripped straight from some of the developers’ other games, but others are inexplicably 3D models while some are 2D sprites. When placed next to each other in a battle lineup, it is not only jarring, but simply smells of lack of effort.
The battle system itself is surprisingly fun for the game that is wrapped around it. Both the player characters and the enemies are set up on mini-grids, and a rudimentary range system determines who is able to attack where. Each character is given a certain amount of stamina to work with per turn, and their attacks take up varying amounts of said stamina. Chaining together attacks from different characters creates combos, and "overkilling" enemies results in stamina restoration. All in all, it feels like a tweaked version of Valkyrie Profile’s battle system -- which is a good thing. Characters who directly participate in battle receive 100% of the experience earned, while “back up” characters earn only a portion (which is a nice, as it prevents the need to power level characters when you switch new ones in).
A large selling point of the game is the costume system, in which all (and by "all" I mean only the female characters) of the characters get costumes that they can wear. These costumes change their appearances, stats, and skills which helps to further the customization aspect of the game. Unfortunately, the battle sprites remain unchanged regardless of what costume is equipped. This is a good example of the general lack of effort that permeates throughout this game -- why market the costume system prominently on the box if they didn’t even bother to change the character sprites to reflect the new costumes?
Progressing through the story is done via searching the world map for event points -- which is surely painless since this is a large portion of the game, right? Wrong. Cross Edge makes you press a button to search an area of the map and doing so stops all forward momentum the character has. This translates to running a few feet, mashing the search button and finding nothing, running a few more feet and repeating the process until you uncover a treasure chest or the much sought-after story event. I could forgive the design decision to force me to press a button to search for points on the world map, but the fact that I cannot quickly do it is annoying at best. To add insult to injury, the rather by-the-book and clichéd storyline didn’t make me want to battle through this games shortcomings to find out what was going to happen.
As if out of a “How To” guide to making a standard RPG storyline, your main characters wake up in a strange world with no memory of how they arrived. Despite coming from a rather mundane background, they have no problem tackling vicious monsters within minutes of the game’s start. Innocent and naïve as any hero is, they welcome buxom Morrigan (of Darkstalkers fame) to their side without so much as an explanation of why she has wings or an aversion to normal clothing.
Along the way, the heroes meet a plethora of other characters that have been pulled into this dimension from their own worlds—Etna (Disgaea), Felicia (Darkstalkers), Marie (Atelier Marie), Lyner, Shurelia, Aurica (Ar Tonelico)—who also find themselves in the same predicament. When push comes to shove, there is enough amnesia being passed around that you have to wonder if the cameos were even necessary. The player eventually finds out that they must travel throughout this world and rescue lost souls in order to save the multiverse from being destroyed: it’s the ultimate Mad-Lib of RPG plots. What’s worse, is that I am never one to scoff that having too many characters in a game but Cross Edge, well, pushed me to the edge. Within just three hours of playing the game, the player has had so many characters thrust upon them that there is already too large of a cast to fit into a single battle.
It’s especially annoying since many of these characters are already known from other titles, and I want to use them all because of previous associations I have with them. When Lyner, Aurica, and Misha all joined my team almost instantly I became a little aggravated. Getting so many characters in such a short time means that some of them are bound to get neglected immediately and potentially never see the action on the battlefield. That isn’t good game design—it works for strategy RPGs that allow you to have a plethora of units in battle at once, but in the limited setting of a traditional RPG it doesn’t sit well.
Cross Edge is a game best left forgotten—even if it is one of the few localized "next-gen" RPGs on the market right now. Between the tedious implementation of the world map and the gross lack of detail in other areas of the game, you will end up wishing that you could be part of a cross-over world where this game didn’t exist. In the end, Cross Edge feels like a poorly constructed ROM/Sprite-hack of any random Atelier or Ar Tonelico game. Actually, scratch that, because that would probably be more fun to play.
The game starts out standard enough -- after a fairly no-frills animated intro you are dropped into the game and asked to choose a difficulty. Varying amounts of data (character levels, items, skills, etc.) will transfer between new game saves depending on what difficulty you are playing the game on. This is a nice spin on the New Game+ approach, but I honestly am at a loss for who would willingly subject themselves to running through this game multiple times. After fiddling around with the game options (both Japanese and English voice tracks are present), I was welcomed with the familiar music that seems to populate the more obscure Japanese RPG tier (Gust/Idea Factory/Compile Heart games). Even the sprite work looked to be reminiscent of other titles, which is excusable since the art direction in these games always have a certain (if not clichéd) charm to them.
What I wasn’t able to excuse were the graphics used for enemies in battle. Not only are some of the enemy battle sprites ripped straight from some of the developers’ other games, but others are inexplicably 3D models while some are 2D sprites. When placed next to each other in a battle lineup, it is not only jarring, but simply smells of lack of effort.
The battle system itself is surprisingly fun for the game that is wrapped around it. Both the player characters and the enemies are set up on mini-grids, and a rudimentary range system determines who is able to attack where. Each character is given a certain amount of stamina to work with per turn, and their attacks take up varying amounts of said stamina. Chaining together attacks from different characters creates combos, and "overkilling" enemies results in stamina restoration. All in all, it feels like a tweaked version of Valkyrie Profile’s battle system -- which is a good thing. Characters who directly participate in battle receive 100% of the experience earned, while “back up” characters earn only a portion (which is a nice, as it prevents the need to power level characters when you switch new ones in).
A large selling point of the game is the costume system, in which all (and by "all" I mean only the female characters) of the characters get costumes that they can wear. These costumes change their appearances, stats, and skills which helps to further the customization aspect of the game. Unfortunately, the battle sprites remain unchanged regardless of what costume is equipped. This is a good example of the general lack of effort that permeates throughout this game -- why market the costume system prominently on the box if they didn’t even bother to change the character sprites to reflect the new costumes?
Progressing through the story is done via searching the world map for event points -- which is surely painless since this is a large portion of the game, right? Wrong. Cross Edge makes you press a button to search an area of the map and doing so stops all forward momentum the character has. This translates to running a few feet, mashing the search button and finding nothing, running a few more feet and repeating the process until you uncover a treasure chest or the much sought-after story event. I could forgive the design decision to force me to press a button to search for points on the world map, but the fact that I cannot quickly do it is annoying at best. To add insult to injury, the rather by-the-book and clichéd storyline didn’t make me want to battle through this games shortcomings to find out what was going to happen.
As if out of a “How To” guide to making a standard RPG storyline, your main characters wake up in a strange world with no memory of how they arrived. Despite coming from a rather mundane background, they have no problem tackling vicious monsters within minutes of the game’s start. Innocent and naïve as any hero is, they welcome buxom Morrigan (of Darkstalkers fame) to their side without so much as an explanation of why she has wings or an aversion to normal clothing.
Along the way, the heroes meet a plethora of other characters that have been pulled into this dimension from their own worlds—Etna (Disgaea), Felicia (Darkstalkers), Marie (Atelier Marie), Lyner, Shurelia, Aurica (Ar Tonelico)—who also find themselves in the same predicament. When push comes to shove, there is enough amnesia being passed around that you have to wonder if the cameos were even necessary. The player eventually finds out that they must travel throughout this world and rescue lost souls in order to save the multiverse from being destroyed: it’s the ultimate Mad-Lib of RPG plots. What’s worse, is that I am never one to scoff that having too many characters in a game but Cross Edge, well, pushed me to the edge. Within just three hours of playing the game, the player has had so many characters thrust upon them that there is already too large of a cast to fit into a single battle.
It’s especially annoying since many of these characters are already known from other titles, and I want to use them all because of previous associations I have with them. When Lyner, Aurica, and Misha all joined my team almost instantly I became a little aggravated. Getting so many characters in such a short time means that some of them are bound to get neglected immediately and potentially never see the action on the battlefield. That isn’t good game design—it works for strategy RPGs that allow you to have a plethora of units in battle at once, but in the limited setting of a traditional RPG it doesn’t sit well.
Cross Edge is a game best left forgotten—even if it is one of the few localized "next-gen" RPGs on the market right now. Between the tedious implementation of the world map and the gross lack of detail in other areas of the game, you will end up wishing that you could be part of a cross-over world where this game didn’t exist. In the end, Cross Edge feels like a poorly constructed ROM/Sprite-hack of any random Atelier or Ar Tonelico game. Actually, scratch that, because that would probably be more fun to play.
