Chrono Cross (Japanese: クロノ・クロス Hepburn: Kurono Kurosu?) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the PlayStation video game console. It is the successor to Chrono Trigger, which was released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
While its predecessor, like most role-playing games at the time, only offered a handful of playable characters, Chrono Cross was notable for making 45 different characters available for recruitment over the course of the game, each with distinct backstory and speech patterns. The game's writer, Masato Kato, started with the core characters from Radical Dreamers, a rare, Japan-only visual novel he felt ultimately went unfinished, and greatly expanded the cast and scenario, while leaving the creation of some minor characters to various other members of the development team. The developers also created an "auto accent program", to apply accents and other quirks to character's dialogue, making the dialogue altered depending on who was present in the player's party.
Reception for the game from critics was very positive, with some publications, such as GameSpot, even giving the game a perfect score. However, reception for the cast of characters was more mixed; some critics were impressed by the quantity, variety, and individuality offered by the characters, where others complained of an emphasis of "quantity over quality".