The 2022 Chrono Cross Remaster Performs Worse on PS5 Than It's 1999 Original Did on PS One

Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is finally here to give us a chance to revisit one of the biggest hits of the PS One era. Made to run on the PS4 and Xbox consoles, Switch, and PC, the remastered version also comes with backward compatibility allowing you to play it on the latest-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. After twenty-three years of waiting, even hardcore fans thought this was never happening. However, one should not be too quick to celebrate. While it is a pleasure to see one of Squaresoft's best JRPGs come back to our screens, many say it is certainly not what you would call a perfect game.

Despite the refined visuals and a few juicy extras, its performance is far below today’s standards for PS5 games and cannot even match how the original of 1999 played on PlayStation One. Thus, the 2022 Chrono Cross remaster tragically fails to meet its goal frame rate of 30 FPS, running at a meager 10 FPS during combat and 20 FPS during the opening corridor scene. To add insult to injury, the frame rate remains hugely unstable across all modern devices, that is, unless you choose to play the remaster in the ‘Classic’ rather than ‘Graphics’ mode, in which case its performance is comparable to the PS One original game.

As surprising as it may sound, the PS One release of Squaresoft's iconic JRPG outperforms the remaster in practically every aspect: from maddeningly inconsistent frame rate to visuals that are fine but extremely basic and to disappointing FMV music that has been heavily compressed.

Did this remaster of the cult classic disappoint you? Do you think Radical Dreamers Edition is the optimal way to play Chrono Cross, or should those who are lucky to still have the original hardware put it to good use? Speak up in the comments section below and share this post with your friends!