Sony
Cross Edge
By George Damidas
Jul 24, 2009, 7 :26 am

It’s hard to wrap your head around Morrigan from Darkstalkers and Prinny from Disgaea conversing with one another, but that’s the kind of thing you get with NIS America’s Cross Edge. A surreal turn-based strategy game that pits an original cast with characters from Ar Tonelico, Darkstalkers, Mana-Khemia 2, Atelier Marie, Disgaea, Spectral Souls, and Absolute: Blazing Infinity against worlds of evil, Cross Edge is a case study in the importance of moderation.

The story begins with York and Miko finding themselves lost in an unfamiliar world, unable to remember what happened. It doesn’t take long for them to run into other characters that also find themselves in similar straits. As it turns out, not all of them find themselves in unfamiliar territory; all of the characters were pulled from different worlds, with each world represented by a plane in the spirit world they now find themselves in. Each soul was strong enough to resist being dragged into the ether, so those scattered throughout the planes are the few who retain their physical form. And this, dear readers, is how you gather characters from seven different series and shoehorn over two dozen characters into one storyline.

If you think it isn’t easy to follow so many characters, you would be right. Despite the multiple world solution being the simplest possible way to have so many disparate game worlds interact, it also creates an overflow problem that is never addressed. It doesn’t help that many characters are similar, coming from role-playing titles either niche or unreleased in North America, you’re going to have a hard to keeping track of anyone but the Darkstalker and Disgaea characters. The numerous male and female plus sidekick combinations run rampant, and soon you have dialogues overflowing with sets trading off between being sarcastic and brooding and wacky and inviting, with very little about their backstories and why you should even care about their troubles. Keeping character history light might have been a necessity, but in a genre where that is a focus, downplaying one of its pillars is a pretty clumsy solution.

This isn’t to say that the characters don’t interact or divulge information. Believe me, they talk. Much of the endless rambling is unnecessary to the story and seems only to serve the purpose of having a series’ particular fan say, “Oh, there they go, still at it!” To lessen the impact of the walls of text some great dialogue management features have been implemented that allow you to set the conversations to automatically scroll by, fast forward through with a skip option, and even bring up a log to see if you missed anything. There will certainly be moments when you want to check out a conversation, chiefly the genuinely funny bits from everyone’s favorite dood Prinny, so having the ability to skip through fat is fantastic. And there’s quite a bit of fat.

When not listen to kids bickering and demons threatening, you will be searching and fighting. Lost souls are scattered throughout the lands, and by searching for them on the world map with your character or a hideout, you can free them, earning loot and progressing the story. The hideouts are also where you rearm, heal, and purchase items. That sounds pretty innocuous, but in truth they are much more than that. Hideouts are where you find out the truth about your teammates: they are greedy bastards. You have to pay your own party members extorted rates to revive fallen members, purchase items, upgrade items, composite and synthesize items. Ridiculous. You want to charge me thousands of gold to heal the person that saved your life? Way to be a team player.

Purchasable items are also limited by the recipes and ingredients you have, since most of the armor and weapons are added to the shop after having been synthesized, negating the always pleasant feeling of purchasing advanced items at a further shop. Hideouts also allow you to do wider area searches while also offering quick travel options to other hideouts, as well as the option to check your rankings online, unlock costumes, and purchase items using earned points. Just as there are too many characters, there are also too many things to keep track of: party points, technical points, gold, and enemy points. It’s a scatterbrained system that requires you to keep track of enemy points for upgrading, party points to distribute for leveling, and technical points for items and skills – and only some items, despite being the same type (e.g. sword) can be purchased with certain points in certain areas within the hideout – and that is on top of characters’ personal points. It’s all unnecessarily convoluted and takes too long to understand.

A significant reason why it’s difficult to comprehend the ins and outs is because of a clumsy menu system. There are menus for menus for menus, with one button even bringing up a different menu when hitting triangle instead of the x button. Instead of something as simple as an on-screen display of a skill’s range, you have to find that within a skill menu and then practice it in a practice battle within the formation menu. There are some shortcuts, such as using the left analog stick to end turns and shift members around, but they are in short supply when considering what you have to contend with.

Combat is equally confusing - at least at first. The area designated for all of the party’s icons, timers, gauges, and moves takes up nearly a quarter of the screen. Face buttons are designated to one of four weapon-specific skill types: all, down, burst, and down. Holding down a shoulder button changes the normal attacks to extra skills (ex) attacks, which are stronger and require both action points and skill points. Skill points are largely built up during combat, which keeps you from simply holding back and unleashing nothing but ex attacks.  Action points are required to exchange members out, shift them around on the 3x4 combat grid, use items, and attack. It’s important to note that moving and exchanging characters can come at a hefty price, but the game often makes this a necessity by giving the first round to the enemy and their multi-square attacks. You often start your attack round with a crippled force. Moves are also timed, with moves made within the countdown going towards the current combo count and break damage. Break damage is important because an enemy unable to block will face the full brunt of your attacks, as well as earn the breaker additional action points.

Keeping track of all the points, moves, and character stacks can be a pain. The party members’ health bars are very small and difficult to accurately gauge, even on a large television, and I didn’t see any way to display their numerical values – the absence of which made for difficult strategizing. Members can also chain moves for additional damage and extra flash, with dozens of chains spread throughout the endless character combinations. Switching between normal and ex attacks is done by individual member, so keeping up a string of moves can result in pretzel fingers as you finagle through the shoulder buttons and face buttons. Then there is trying to manage the loot – how to spread it out, what to sacrifice for upgrades and synthesizing, what to upgrade, who to give armor to, etc. – which is far beyond most RPGs.

Combat is worth sticking with though, because it’s really where the game shines. It might be discombobulating and disappointing at first, the Byzantine configuration of numbers and icons above overblown pixel characters fighting mediocre polygon enemies against crisp and lovely static backgrounds, but it quickly comes into its own. There’s a nasty tendency to toss overpowered enemies into the fray, which is a little frustrating at first, but a forgiving escape command helps to even things out. As difficult as the first hour or so was, I simply had to keep playing, because the timed moves and chain attacks really grabbed my attention. It becomes downright addictive trying to chain as many moves as possible for extended and dangerous combos, as well as coming up with optimum formations and member combinations. The only real lingering problem is that the amount of members means a lot of wading through similar abilities to find those that truly shine, and those not active will continually receive less experience and eventually get left behind. Once you find a few characters that suit your style and hit your stride, hours will melt away as you grind your way through the world. With so much going on, and even the ability to skip attack animations, the game manages to move at a surprisingly brisk pace.

Aside from the combat mechanics, Cross Edge is a pretty by-the-numbers title. The novelty of the characters actually lasts for a while as the game stretches out the introductions. It takes hours to gather all of the characters, and it seems as though you are learning or rediscovering different aspects throughout. The sheer breadth of item customization and creation only adds to the numerous balls that are constantly in the air, each doing their part to stave off the tediousness brought about by their very volume.  An interesting feature is the ability to gauge how powerful you are against other players through an online database, which isn’t worth much more than bragging rights, but nonetheless an interesting implementation of online functionality. Collecting souls and accomplishing specific tasks also unlocks titles and costumes, with titles giving rewards, including some hefty piles of gold, and costumes affecting the character’s stats.

The game requires that you do a lot of the lifting for it, sifting through its various features in a manner that maintains interest while not overwhelming. Unfortunately, that is a lot to ask for given the amount of content, which isn’t always well documented, and the menu system. There is just a lot of everyone and the game makes little to no effort in assisting with the glut, some of which you would be happy to do without.

Overall: 6/10