A true masterpiece...

What was the start of all this?

When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?

Perhaps it is impossible to grasp the answer now,

From deep within the flow of time...

But for a certainty back then,

We loved so many yet hated so much,

We hurt others and we hurt ourselves...

Yet even then we ran like the wind,

Whilst our laughter echoed,

Under cerulean skies....

-Chrono Cross, PSX

I've been playing a lot of original Playstation games lately. I've been craving some of the mid generation games that I've always loved to play. My favorite game from this generation, and probably of all time, is Chrono Cross. Everything about this game attracted me: the story, the characters, the graphics. I've played a few RPGs on the Xbox 360 and haven't really been that impressed (I did just recently start playing Dragon Age and I guess I must admit I'm addicted to that game). Not many games have been able to grab onto me like this game has.

I've learned I'm a fan of the older generations of games, at least when it comes to RPGs. All the reasons I like this game pretty much sums up how these older RPGs are much better in quality than they are today. I miss when games had no voice acting. The only thing that accompanied the actions of the characters were the words that popped up on the screen. Chrono Cross came out during the time that games were starting to delve more into voice acting, but the makers of CC decided to keep their players reading instead of listening.

Each of the 42 characters had their own personalities. Many of these personalities are aided by the variety of accents given to the characters. Most of the characters have their own diverse way of talking. The heroine, Kid, speaks with a slight Australian accent, calling people "mate" and telling her enemies that she'll "kick their arses so hard they'll kiss the moons". Harle speaks with a French accent with the occasional French words and phrases gives a nice dash of sass to her character. Of course these accents can easily be done by voice actors, but it will always sound perfect when you're reading it to yourself.

One thing that will butcher a game for me is terrible voice acting. If the voices of the characters don't fit the actual characters and are just bad at acting out the certain situations, it makes me want to turn off the game and hide it in a dark corner forever. When you read, your mind takes over and forms your own version of the way a character speaks and acts. This is all ruined if the character is given an actual voice and the actor plays the part terribly. A character can be ruined by an actual voice. Part of the beauty of older games was reading whatever needed to be said. Players are able to interpret a character into the best they can be because they are partially formed within the person playing the game.

Something else that seems to be dying in the newer generations of RPG games is the silent protagonist. Since voice acting is almost a staple in games today, the silent protagonist becomes and unrealistic part of the scenario. If everyone else around the main character has a voice, there is no reason for him/her not to speak as well. Some games still hold onto it, but it seems to be a part of video games that is slowly dying. Silent protagonists gave the game developers a challenge. They had to give a character a personality through actions alone. The actions and choices are the only attributes that will give this character a bit of their own personality. The rest of the personality is up to the gamer himself. With silent protagonists, the gamer is able to create the character. A gamer can feel their own presence within the silent protagonist since they never speak themselves. I've always been a huge fan of the silent protagonist in Chrono Cross, Serge. I was able to make him into the ideal man for the situation he found himself in. The player knows something has gone wrong during the one part of the game where Serge gains a voice (well, text technically). He was a silent protagonist that was able to take his players and keep them interested in this magnificent game.

Even though Chrono Cross was one of the later original Playstation games, the makers chose to keep voice acting out when many other games were using this along with or instead of text. Now, it is hard to find a new game without voice acting, and as long as it is done well I can enjoy it. I will always have a soft spot for the more retro games though. No matter how amazing new games are, I will always be able to pull out my PS2 and enjoy playing Chrono Cross, as well as many other older games that existed before the mandatory voices were placed within video games.