Despite loooong searches on google,on forums,on official websites,I can't find an answer to my question.Does anyone know if it has once again been postponed?Cancelled?Warped to another dimension or another time period?I just can't stand the wait anymore.I'm also hoping for another Chrono game in the series,even if I'm a bit afraid in a way that they would really "break" (bad pun) the series spirit with making a new Chrono game changing the team or the general eerie atmosphere.Maybe fond memories are better,but at least a new CC arranged OST would be a good surprise for...let's say...Xmas?By the way,when will the series reach its 10th anniversary?Isn't it precisely 2007?

CT was out in 1995, so I think we missed the anniversary. ;p

I'd love to see some of the ideas of CT re-emerge (the battle system, time travel) and even a proper sequel, but if it means enduring the same kind of pounding CC did to the overall storyline, I can do without.

I'm guessing Mitsuda was busy with his other projects and hasn't gotten to it yet. I wouldn't mind seeing a premium arrange of the OST though. Would certainly be better than the source material they normally pick for them...

It was originally announced in January 2005, and the initial release date was July 2005. Then in 2006 I saw Mitsuda posting in his forum that he just talked with the musicians he had worked with before about the album. I think Mitsuda isn't so motivated, besides being busy with his non-main stream projects.

My guess is it will be released 2009, the 10th anniversary of CC. Not as hopeless as Chinese Democracy (even this seems to be actually released in a couple of years, though).

Not so reassuring news.Too bad Mitsuda is involved in other projects that I don't feel interested in...And omg!Already 12 years since Chrono Trigger has been released?I must be getting old...

LOL

Agreed.

I remember some interview last year saying he was sorry he didn't get around to it and he'd definitely have it out for 2007. I was waiting all this year for it. Welll...looks like it might be 2008

As you say it: "MIGHT be 2008"....
T_T

The Day of LAVOS has to happen first, only then will the cd  magically appear to save the universe.

I can see fans are still around the corner. ^^
However,I just learnt the cd is stuck at the end of time...So there's quite a looooong wait ahead of us.
If someone can unlock Mitsuda's skills and have him to record this OST,this person will have...my eternal thanks?I don't need the universe to be saved,but just my soul and my love of rpgs,which is slowly fading...

Who's "They?" I always wonder how we end up with the tracklists that we do for arrange albums...

I've found Mitsuda to be pretty disappointing since Kirite; I'd say that was his last greatest work. So, I'd agree on letting some other artists take the wheel on this one.

Armodyne was decent, though the cynic might look at it as a rip-off of Front Mission, or any other mech-based military strategy game.

Whoever decided the soundtracks for Dark Chronicle and Rogue Galaxy (and to an extent, PSO1+2, due to the nature of the music) deserved Premium Arranges.

Dark Chronicle Premium Arrange > all others.

LOVE that album.

On topic: Mitsuda needs to call back the ol' Millenial Fair crew from CREID and just do a jam-session recording for Chrono Cross. I'd buy it.

Was KiRite before or after Hako no Niwa?  If after, then you are correct sir!! 

It's a shame:  I thought Luminous Arc had alot more potential for Mitsuda to harken back to his SNES composing days.  The opening piano piece he did was gorgeous.  Too bad it was his only track.

I'm still hoping and praying that the Chrono Cross Arrange will come into existence at some point as well.

Although, I'd have to agree with the others in that I can do without a sequel. Chrono Cross (the game) was a huge disappointment to me, but at least it had fantastic music and art (gotta love Nobuteru Yuuki).

While I do still like Xenogears better, I've gotta agree with this.  I LOVE the artwork in Chrono Cross (my cold cast Serge statue agrees!).

You own this statue too?It's just soooo good looking.I managed to buy the three of them,but it took me years,especially to find Serge.
It's quite strange to notice so many people have been disappointed with Chrono Cross.However,I can perfectly understand you,as some events in the story looked different from the original story,but if not taken as a real sequel,but as a game inspired,or derived from Chrono Trigger,Chrono Cross is just one of the most interesting RPGs of the PS1/PSX,if not of all times.Many characters,even if not all of them were good,characters artworks were indeed great,the general design was unique and colored,and as you said it,the music was...just awesome.It even was the first game OST I purchased in my life.
Sigh....

I actually enjoyed Chrono Cross.

While most of the characters were undeveloped, and the ones that were, they had...really...complex back stories; a lot of plot was dropped at the beginning and the ending of the game; I'd say it REALLY came together in the end, almost to the extent that, the scripwriters were like, "Oh, shit, we're almost at the end of the game, and we need to start sticking some details into there!"

But other than that, I really enjoyed it, especially the setting (tropical islands FTW), and the music; I just wouldn't say that the characters or plot were strong points. The whole point of the game was to settle the whole mystery of Schala's disappearance...kind of like how Advent Children solves Cloud's guilt after story, or how Dirge of Cerberus cleans up Vincent's back story.

It WAS interesting to see cameos of Crono & Co. at the Leene's Square in Geddon; better than Kingdom Hearts cameo interesting, or FFVII compilation rewriting interesting.

I think Chrono Cross suffered from overinflated expectations. A lot of people consider Chrono Trigger to be one of the best RPGs of all time (myself included) and what sequel could ever live up to that?

CC is a good game for what it is but it's definitely not on the same level of CT. The characters and plot just aren't as interesting.

A lot of people probably didn't appreciate the slower, turn-based battle system, either.

Chrono Cross was Masato Kato expressing his distaste for the original and the people he was originally forced to work with on CT by cheapening the original and forcing people to accept any sequel on his terms (he only got to write the 12000 BC scenario, hence the change from the rest of the game). Plain and simple. After years of pondering what went wrong, I've concluded it was just a very ego-driven project as opposed to one with any interest in what people liked about the original (hence, the relatively low number of people who like both games or at least feel strongly towards both). I'll go so far as to bet Radical Dreamers (the SNES gaiden) was based on events he had written for the game and had rejected by the scenario writers and was able to get made into a low-budget visual novel. And ironically, its' status as the original's sequel is probably the main thing that helped it achieve the success and positive feedback it did. Hey, that's why I bought my copy. I personally don't want to see the series continued under the same circumstances. Another Square-Enix (d'oh) collaboration with a similar team as the first? Sure. Another clash with Kato's ego and over-convoluted storytelling to tell a story of little substance? I wouldn't even bother reading the previews. Then again, if they brought back the original battle system, I might put up with it. The CC one is cool, but you don't have any incentive to use it with *ugh* growth levels that only measure your position in the game.

I will say though...Although I think the music is very overrated and I never understood the big deal about the sound quality when Suikoden 1 sounded equally as good (if not better) and was three+ years older, I like it more than I did in the past. It has a fair number of tracks I never want to hear again in my lifetime, but that's the norm for RPG soundtracks and when it's good, it's pretty damn good and memorable...which doesn't seem to be the norm for RPG soundtracks or composers nowadays, at least for me. It's one of the few soundtracks I've considered buying back that I've sold in the past.

Very interesting comments,GoldfishX!
More people!More discussion about CT/CC!
I definitely agree with you about the CT battle system.The combos were great,and were,I think,quite an original idea in a RPG.What I really liked personally in CC Combat system,were some techniques (Lynx,Harle,and a few others).Just a question,though: Wasn't Harle an excellently drawn and scenarised character for you all?It remains my favourite character of the game,and I just can't forget her,even if she had to....
Have any of you people played and completed Radical Dreamers?I never did...

I think CC music may be overrated,I agree with you,as some others were excellent too (I'm thinkinf for instance of Seiken 2,or Final Fantasy VI).In fact,I think that a game OST can be appreciated to its maximum if the game in which it could be heard really "means" something to you.When I got CC,it was the only game left to me to complete.I just couldn't stop playing it.I could remember the CT music,and when I heard some of the tracks rearranged for CC,I just felt the same kind of feelings,remembering all the fond memories that CT represented (and still represents) for me.I knew the game wasn't perfect,but I didn't care.It was magic to me.I was wondering how old all of you were when you played CT,and then CC.I was born in 1982,and I remember playing CT (US version) aged something like 14 (maybe less),but max 15. I then played Chrono Cross (still US version) when it went out in US.I must have been about 16/17,and I think it was the perfect time to play through these games,as now I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have liked them that much.Even if I was not yet able to speak fluidly in English,I had understood most of the scenario,but the replay value made it even better as I was able to understand many more things.Did someone have the same experience,or something close to that?

Yeah, but ... the 12000 BC scenario was far and away the best part of Chrono Trigger. Anyone who disagrees is smoking some strong stuff.

I thought that a sequel "on his terms" was just fine, and I enjoyed Chrono Cross. I also thought it was clever of him to quote "cheapen" the events of CT by putting so much emphasis on Schala. The way the mini-ghost CT cast was initially disgusted by Serge and his existence, CLASSIC. The whole "Sea of the Dead" and whatnot? Sweet.

But ultimately, I may have preferred a *second* time traveling game, and not a dimension-traveling game. Because, where can they go from here? I don't know of a form of traveling that goes further than time and dimenson. Hmm... maybe having two dimensions in different spots along a timeline, ...
yeah...

Yeah, I appreciate your feedback GFX. But I still <3 CC.

All I remember about Chrono Cross was I had a hot dancer chick and an alien in my party and I decided I had enough. I was 18-19, when I still regularly played RPG's and didn't mind convoluted plot threads. I first played CT at 14, but I replay it roughly once every 2 years (Lucca's the only character I never beat the game with).

Probably not a bad game (though it happened to do a lot of things I detest in RPG's in general), but a nightmarish sequel.

Yeah, that's one reason I softened on the OST a bit over the years...CC is a game that most definitely doesn't have nostalgia working for it, so it meant those good tracks were actually REALLY good. ;p

I don't smoke shit, but I happened to enjoy the two prehistoric periods, the first future trip (especially the first Lavos part...No bullshit, no angst, no wasted words...Just a tell-all videotape documentary of the apocalypse and what you're going to be up against) and the Magus assault/Frog storyline and the side adventures near the end more.

It's worth noting...Schala didn't show up until 12000 BC and CC was about...hmmm, Schala. Kato, you slay me.

I personally didn't find the two worlds or the reasoning behind them different enough to warrant a convoluted storyline that spans an entire game behind them. Whereas time travel...So many possibilities. They could've made an expansion of nothing but more scenarios like the end-of-game side scenarios in CT alone.

I'm not a big fan of the 12,000 BC scenario. It's filled with a lot of extraneous stuff and dull characters. I zone out when Schala takes center stage (partly explaining my dislike for CC).

2,300 AD carries most of the emotional weight for me. The scenes with the remnants of humanity are very matter-of-fact and quite powerful.

The score for Suikoden 1 was streamed, which means there was virtually no constraint on sample quality (Suikoden 2 was sequenced, though).

As much as I don't like CC soundtrack as everybody does, I certainly appreciate the fact that its concept was to be an antithesis to typical orchestral RPG scores (Mitsuda himself said so in the interview). It didn't have a whole a lot to impress me, but it had several facets and some tracks were really good. The problem is, I prefer a typical, samey yet good soundtrack to a unique, diverse yet bland soundtrack. CC is, while not bland, close to the latter side. So, I'd not consider myself as a big fan of CC, but its arranged album will be an interesting release, and I go to the length of saying that I'll be happy to see more RPGs have soundtracks like this, rather than a trite orchestral score.

As for the game... I avoided it based on the demo attached to Legend of Mana. It had a very long load time (more than 7 secs?) before battles. Later I knew it was fixed, though.

I'll join Ramza on his opinion about 12 000 B.C,but I also understand the other people with negative opinions of this time period.What I really liked in it,was that it wasn't spoken about in the booklet.I always read RPGs booklets,and the CT one was very good for me back then,compared to the cheap booklets we were getting in France.Magus wasn't noted as being a member of the team of heroes,and no clear allusion was made to another time period.So it really was a surprise when I discovered this new time period,very different from the others,and especially as it told the story of Mao/Magus,who was noone else than Janus (even if it wasn't apparently the original idea of the game makers...).I also liked the allusion to mythology,with Janus originally having two faces,but being in CT the hated Magus having a second "true" identity.This was a clever idea,but I can also understand the feeling of some of you who felt it was very different from the other time periods of the game.
Furthermore,despite my love for CC,I have to agree on the point that choosing dimensions instead of time periods quite disappointed me,especialy considering that this lessened the variety of possible events,as GoldfishX explained it.
I think that games which can divide people that much really deserve to be played,cause difference has always raised debates,in every arts.And difference and "innovation" (I hope this word really exists in English) can't be entirely bad.

I'm not a big fan of Chrono Cross' music. I simply don't see what others see in it outside a few tracks (some of the world map themes are nice and 2-16 "Prisoners to Fate" doubles as a killer battle theme) but I don't go around having a field day picking it apart either. I respect it but I don't have to embrace it.

Part of me thinks my disinterest in the game hurts my view of the soundtrack but then I like Xenogears' tunes and could easily go without ever playing through the game again. Still, that's not saying a lot either as there are many games where having the music on hand instead of the game is more than enough.

What I liked about 12000BC, is that at first, it felt like a secret time period; why, it almost felt like you warped to a whole entire 'nother planet...and then, you find that, at that kingdom, they use Lavos as a power source! Why, this place could be where Lavos came from!...until you find out it's actually after the Prehistoric period...although, if Lavos was created in Zeal, he could've travelled back in time to nuke 65mil BC....just a theory, but I doubt you could actually make that pan out.

But that's the thing about Lavos: it has the same thing going for it as the Angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion: we don't know where they came from!

12000BC is also awesome because it's where the entire story comes together, explains the true identities of a number of characters, and how they impacted history.

I loved the 12000 BC section.  That's why Chrono Cross is such a stab in the back to fans of CT.  It takes the best part of CT, the MYSTERY, and shits all over it (don't even get me started on that live action ending nonsense).  CC should have just been Radical Dreamers in 3D and left the CT stuff out and it would have been a fine game.  I think Squenix should release a Wii game called "Kick Masato Kato In The Nuts."  The game should be free to anyone who wants it.  It should come packed with a boot controller, a $50 bill, and a handwritten letter of apology, preferably written with that special quill that Harry Potter has to use in the fifth book.

And no, I'm not bitter.  :-)