Introduction: Chrono Cross, a name that rings true to varios Chrono Trigger fans was a long anticapated game. But if you're anything like me, that means you love music, you bought the soundtrack before the game was released, and that made you drool even more.

Review: Although this soundtrack was written by Yasunori Mitsuda it is unlike his past works. I was expecting to open this one and find something suspenseful and exciting. Yet I find myself looking at the opposite. Mitsuda's usual action based soundtrack just wasn't there, but what did lay beneath the beautifully packaged soundtrack was something soothing, with a twinge of inner suspense.

When you begin the first track of this musical masterpiece you begin in a world of what might remind you of the Wild Arms music. It opened with a soft acoustic guitar, a flute, an various percussions in the background. Immediately I started thinking of the world, how it would look, how relaxing the scenery would be, and all the wonders I would find in it. Then, after about 55 seconds of playing, it suddenly picks up into an almost adventagous mix of suspense and action! The music was the the same, yet, faster, more powerful, there was more percussion, and last but not least, a wonderful mixture of string instruments was brought in. Mixing between the cello, viola, violin, and bass. I was immediatly taken with this piece.

The second track was the battle music. This fit quiet well into what I was expecting from Yasunori Mitsuda. Very suspenseful and energetic. If you've played many SquareSoft games. This one will have a nice sound. But it will not surprise you much.

The rest of the soundtrack is a large mixture between different styles of music. Soft, sad, exciting, eventful, etc.

The most wonderful part of this soundtrack was the nice mix of instruments. The strings were wonderful, but nothing out of the ordinary, the percussion is always used in these games. But the use of the guitar was a wonderful touch. I can't imagine a nicer mixture then the strings with the guitar. It was truly great to hear something so inspirational out there.

I didn't expect so many familiar sounds as I found inside this game. Much of the music were redos of Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers soundtracks. (For those of you who don't know what radical dreamers is, it's a japanese game that was never released in america, much like Chrono Trigger. If I can get my hands on it, I'll put a review up for it too with some screen shots!) We all enjoyed the music of chrono trigger very much. In the same way, this was just as enjoyable, but sometimes I felt like I had bought a remix soundtrack of Chrono Trigger which made the music seem, not as original every time I played it.

Conclusion: This is a wonderful soundtrack! I think it's probably one of the best of all the PSX games ever released. The only problem is if you didn't enjoy the music to Chrono Trigger, the similarities will bother you so much, you might have to trash the c.d. or delete the mp3's. Besides this small factor, the Chrono Cross soundtrack did wonderful all around, from packaging, to every track on the albums. I strongly recommend this. If you do not have the money? Downloading it here at emuparadise!

Ratings: (scale of 0.0 - 5.0)