Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is now available on the Nintendo Switch eShop, and expectations were high for a superb remake of the legendary PlayStation One RPG from Square Enix.
Digital Foundry‘s tech enthusiasts have taken a close look at how it works on the three platforms, the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PC. The main and rather significant issue that Digital Foundry’s Thomas Morgan has with the remaster is the game’s overall performance and frame rate, which he attributes to Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition running as an emulated PlayStation One game rather than being remade from the ground up.
The major hope is that Square Enix would repair some of the faults when the game is released, but it is still a bad look for the established firm and a disappointing outcome for a classic remake.
Digital Foundry highlights
Performance is a glaring weak point in the remaster
To put it frankly, frame rates on PS5 and Switch are as low as the original PS1 — and often even lower when the ‘new’ graphics setting is enabled. The initial opening hallway drops to 20fps compared to 30fps on the PS1 original, indicating a problem from the start. This isn’t the lowest it can go, since more strenuous sequences might cause the frame-rate limit to drop to 20, 15, or even 10fps. This isn’t to claim that the original release was great – the original PlayStation also had a wildly fluctuating frame-rate between 10 and 30fps – but it is worrying that a remaster running on newer platforms actually ends up reaching lower frame-rates in some of the same sequences.”
Given the PS5 and Switch performance concerns, we wondered whether the game might run better and be more pleasurable to play on PC.
Unfortunately, from what we could test, it’s much the same — the opening corridor stays at 20fps in the new graphics level, while combat plummet to 15fps or less – even on a Titan RTX system. It’s evident that overall system horsepower isn’t a factor here, but there must be something wrong with the emulation that’s causing these egregiously low frame rates. The only difference between PC and console versions is that you can reach a graphics menu by pressing Escape, which reveals that the game is running with MSAA and FXAA and gives access to higher output resolutions – not exactly a remedy to the remaster’s faults.”
About Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition
“CHRONO CROSS: THE RADICAL DREAMERS EDITION” is a remaster of the original game “CHRONO CROSS.” The 3D models have been updated to HD, new drawings have been added, and other new functions have been introduced. In addition, the game that served as the foundation for the plot, “RADICAL DREAMERS,” is included in this version! CHRONO CROSS is a role-playing game that spans time and space, spanning across two interconnected parallel universes. People and realms will intersect in this epic story about the planet itself, with over 40 party members to meet.
