Chrono Cross characters tier list (unmarked spoilers)

Yuri

Yuri

Yes, tier lists apply mostly to fighting games but the idea can be stretched to other genres. This is just my general idea and is very vague as well(I haven't used all the characters and have trouble remembering them). This may come out as weird but I am a sucker for tier lists :(

I'll just ask everyone to place their opinions on what the character is inherently. I mean, all Spectra Norris beats all Bone Glenn but remove the equipment and Glenn is clearly far superior. A mention about an exclusive equipment is valid of course (Pierre being the most shrieking example). You could even mention a character more than once to show how much he goes up with his equipment.

Edit: please note this is based on a first run, not New Game+. In NG+ everyone is God Tier.

Top
Ordered. I think the majority will agree with me on the characters though the order is certainly highly debatable. The trait they share is that they can beat the game alone

Serge - all stats are sky high, huge Grid, monster Techs, Mastermune is mean, Chrono Cross. Can Dual Tech with Glenn, making them even better. Serge can also heal like nuts and did I mention Saints is broken?

Lynx - See above, only he can't Dual Tech or use the Chrono Cross. Feral Cats and ForeverZero ARE better than Luminaire and FlyingArrow, but you have to revert back to Serge eventually, making him unavaible. Thus, points down.

Glenn - double Einlanzer oh my God. Just like Serge/Lynx but a tad more defenses and HP, a noticeably smaller Grid and a triffling more STR. Techs are incredible too. Could be tied with them but loses because Black and White are better than Green by definition.

Harle - crazy Magic and Grid. Other stats are just a bit lower than Serge's. Probably the best Techs in the game. Too bad that, much like Lynx, she leaves the party eventually.


High
Roughly ordered

Karsh - fuck large HP, STR, DEF and MP. Grid is a bit small. Despite the bleh MP and bad RES, STA and EVD, what prevents him from bring Top is that he cannot hold Einlanzer or Mastermune.

Grobyc - mammoth HP, DEF, and ties with Glenn for ATK. Average Grid but can't really use it for attacking since MP is bad and so is his MD. StrongArm is good but requires a sidequest so points down.

Leah - ok wow can she take hits. 999 HP with 88 DEF is no joke. But then again she needs it for she can't evade and takes status a lot. For some reason has the highest STR stat, her Grid is awesome but her magic is ass. Techs tend to wreak havoc too.

Fargo - very solid. Has an okay Grid, very high HP, DEF and STR but on the other hand is a bit slow, magic blows(again), couldn't dodge the shit flung by a slug if his life depended on it and STA is argh. Techs 2 and 3 could be a bit stronger but Pillage is awesome.


Upper Mid
Roughly ordered

Razzly - the tiny floating cutie is badass in the beginning, RazzStar stomping over everything. She is like the Green counterpart to Guile and so she pales in comparison to Karsh as you advance further in the game. She is still pretty good though, having awesome magic and impeccable Grid. Terrible physical stats pull her down.

Kid - can't take a bloody hit but is fast, EVD is top notch and so are STA and RES. Awesome Grid, possess the MP to use it, ATK is good but her equipments are bad. As far as Techs go, Pilfer is a godsend, Hairpin is good, HotShot looks like it should do more and you need to take an wild guess to acquire it. A guess that those who haven't played CT will never have so points down. What really throws her off though is being unavaible for like half the game 0_0

Orlha - Grid has an average amount of spots but are heavily compressed in levels 1 and 2 so uh. Her Magic is low anyway. HP is low, speed is good enough, good STR. The level 3 tech requires a relatively long sidequest but all of them pack a punch. Like Karsh, she is not in the above tier because she has no tool which makes her comparable to the ones above her.

Starky - great stats overall, can't take a punch in the face though for HP and DEF are really bad. Average Grid. Techs are meh though.


Mid

Norris - his Techs are quite damaging, Grid is too focused on levels 1 and 2. STR is good and HIT is surprisingly high coming from a shot character. However, subpar HP paired with bad defenses make staying alive difficult for him.


Lower Mid

Guile - awesome in the beginning because his Magic is enormous and WandalIn deals sick damage. However, he becomes bad somewhere in the middle because physical damage is more important. His obnoxious Grid favors high level Elements but until you go to NG+ it is far from complete. In fact, with 48 Stars his Grid is very lacking. Magic is gorgeous, HP is high, RES is fair but all else stink. Techs don't do all that damage too.


Low

Leena - she has great magic stats and a large Grid. She is also of the color you first learn that can heal (blue). So why is she bad? Contrary to Chrono Trigger, physical hits are more important than magic attacks (if you're going to mention Crono+Raibow+Frenzy Band just don't) and she is really bad at that. Her Techs don't do squat either and the third one is a pain to get. At least she can heal like nuts.

Greco - very high HP, STR and DEF; everything else blows. Slow as hell too.

Roll tier

Roll - ROLL BUSTER!!!!!!!

Korcha - bad bad bad everything about Korcha is bad. Can barely deal damage, dies in what two hits? Techs are ass and to add insult to the injury the third requires a sidequest. On top of that he is very annoing.

Skelly - disappointment is the only word that can describe Skelly. You go through one third of the game assembling his parts and when he is ready to rumble, he sucks major ass. He is bad at everything.

Pierre - this weird duder has terrible stats and is very annoying. He is actually decent once he wields the Hero equipment but before that you want to avoid him at all costs.


The rest... I have no clue. Like I said, I haven't used all of them and also haven't played CC in a while but anyway, I wanted to start this discussion. This page might be good reference in stats and Techs: http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Characters_%28Chrono_Cross%29.html
 
Skelly is a pretty good candidate for low/bottom. He's sort of annoying to recruit, and has throughly unimpressive stats/techs for the amount of work you have to put in. Janice has better stats but is by far the most difficult character to recruit, so she's almost as bad.

Also, who's Roll?
 
Roll is to Marvel universe what Dan is to Street Fighter Universe.

Guile could be Middle I guess but he sucks during the middle part of the game. Near the beggining you can pump his terrible DEF with acessories but you have to take into account the characters for what they are.

Oh yeah Skelly is terrible, forgot him. Also forgot Razzly, she is by no means Karsh but Magic and RazzStar are good.

Edit: oh yeah lol Capcom, I was thinking versus series which has Marvel in the name twice. Whatever.
 
I'm just trying to figure out how you derived that magical attacks are more important than physical in Trigger...

The list is kinda arbitrary considering you don't get most of the guys until the very end and at that point you've lost some of the better characters. (Harle, Lynx, but you do get Kid back)
 
In my view Chrono Trigger is defined by magic. Luminaire, Antipode, Black Matter, you name it. Also most bosses showcase their strongest attacks in form of magic. I never said physical attacks are not important mind you.

In Chrono Cross on the other hand you must hit physically if you want to use Elements and in general you'll be dealing more damage with your brawl while casting a spell is just they don't sit there looking pretty.

And how is that arbitrary? You can't argue that Glenn is better than say NeoFio.
 
i always liked sprigg cause her gimmick is sweet

i dont really recall any standouts aside from the obvious serge and glenn. from what i recall i used karsh cause double green is beast mode.

i think i used another white character just cause double white is also quite beast mode, but i forget what other whites were actually worth using. starky is butts and steena is probably terrible too, i think i used maxed out pip and he was awesome.
 
Funny to see this now, I just replayed CC for the first time in years and will be starting NG+ soon.

Viper is a great STR-based character, and can max out his lvl7 slots with the same lvl7 tech. He's also an automatic join no matter which route you take through the game so I think that's worth something.

Personally I would put Marcy over Fargo, two techs that hit all, decent attack, really great hit and evade, and high magic as well. I guess Pillage is very useful though, depends on first run or NG+?

and Chronos it's a fighting game reference
 
In NG+ you can can stampede over the game with pretty much everyone so I guess first run. I don't know how good a fully evolved Pip is but it takes forever to morph it and there is also that Grid glitch so ugh Pip sucks.

Viper is ok, but nowhere as good as Norris or Leah.
 
YU-RI-OH said:
In my view Chrono Trigger is defined by magic. Luminaire, Antipode, Black Matter, you name it. Also most bosses showcase their strongest attacks in form of magic. I never said physical attacks are not important mind you.

In Chrono Cross on the other hand you must hit physically if you want to use Elements and in general you'll be dealing more damage with your brawl while casting a spell is just they don't sit there looking pretty.

And how is that arbitrary? You can't argue that Glenn is better than say NeoFio.
Click to expand...

Luminare is a pretty weak attack for Crono for the amount of MP it costs. The best attacks in the game are mostly physical based dual techs like Volt Bite, Fire/Ice Sword II, Fire Tackle, and Beast Toss. On just a scale of power sure the magic based attacks are more powerful but in terms of efficiency the physical based dual techs are the best attacks you can use. Heck I run through the game and use Crono, Ayla, Robo whenever possible and rarely have any trouble. (The Golem Twins can be troublesome)

The bosses though are very magic based. Early on they are physical and slowly shirt over to the magic based side. Obviously in Zeal you are dealing with heavy magic so that is a given regardless.

Well I wouldn't say the physical attacks are better, they are just necessary to be able to use magic. You aren't picking a base attack over a Level 7 grid attack.


That is my thoughts exactly, it's arbitrary because you really aren't using 60% of the characters unless you are just messing around or you want to see them in action. It's not like a pokemon tier where you can legitimately use most of the fully evolved pokes without severely hampering your teams chances.
 
Kid is bottom tier. Except for stealing shit, she is awful. Fargo is in the same boat, but slightly better.

Evolved Pip is terrible; I regret evolving it iimensely.

Marcy is better than Karsh at worst. She is stellar.

Draggy is awful; Mojoy is awful; Sprigg is awful; Starky is awful; Funguy is awful; Poshul is a total piece of SHIT; Van is bad; Sneff is psetty bad.

Doc is surprisingly pretty good I guess!

Greco is good but physically/defensively so!

EDIT: Hahahahahaha, I was just watching the endings I missed, and the best line ever just happened: Kid was bitching back and forth with the shopgirl (Lisa?) when Korcha walks in and she goes AHHHH! KORCHA!!!
 
grats butthead you didnt evolve pip properly

full white pip with maxed grids is so pro, double white is mad damage
 
CaptKirby said:
I went the dark route, as I always heard how much stronger it was in the game than white in general!
Click to expand...

man so wrong i cant even

look when the field is white white melees and white spells/techs do more damage, since serge is white having two characters to keep the field as white as possible means CRAZY DAMAGE




also this tier list is nonsensical then. we're not talking sheer damage in new game+, we're talking usefulness in game? then fargo/kid are top tier obviously as stealing is extremely important/useful. youre measuring things in such an obscure way.
 
I also read that a white ally with Serge was a terrible idea. Maybe they were off, I just followed that advice because I always go for dark over holy alliances anyway :x

I do not know if the Fargo/Kid part is directed to me, but if you are then you are utterly wrong. A tier is never about solely usefulness, but rather is solely about strength or is about strength reconciled to usefulness or necessity of use. You can use Kid or Fargo merely when it appears you are going to need to steal (what I did) if you cannot stand how absurdly weak they are. How is measuring strength obscure? One always must balance strength with usefulness when actually playing a game!
 
I loved Chronos Cross. It such an awesome game. Was there ever a follow up?

On topic: Kid should be on a lower level. She didn't stay on my tema for very long. Glenn should be high and fargo should be top.
 
^Nope, hasn't been a follow up. Go buy Chrono Trigger DS so Square makes a sequel.

And kid stayed on my team up until... well you know.
 
CaptKirby said:
I also read that a white ally with Serge was a terrible idea. Maybe they were off, I just followed that advice because I always go for dark over holy alliances anyway :x

I do not know if the Fargo/Kid part is directed to me, but if you are then you are utterly wrong. A tier is never about solely usefulness, but rather is solely about strength or is about strength reconciled to usefulness or necessity of use. You can use Kid or Fargo merely when it appears you are going to need to steal (what I did) if you cannot stand how absurdly weak they are. How is measuring strength obscure? One always must balance strength with usefulness when actually playing a game!
Click to expand...

no it was directed at yuri

this is why the concept of tiers in an rpg is too complicated to really measure. strength pales in comparison to usefulness while completing a game; in new games plus youd obviously avoid kid/fargo because you don't care about stealing since you're already decked. at that point youd use the strongest characters, the ones who should be top tier.

but yuri is saying that hes talking about a normal playthrough, not new game+ so obviously you go for utility, which would make kid/fargo top tier because they steal shit which is really useful throughout the entire game.
 
Yes, not a NG+ because, as I stated before, everyone is God tier in NG+.

Now on the usefulness versus strenght: both matter, of course. You want a character to be good in battles and balanced overall, meaning you don't have to be switching him/her back and fort because hey it's Water Dragon Isle and it's full of Hi-Ho Warcries and this fucker is like the Green Lantern and shit in his pants when he sees the color yellow.

Serge is an easy example. He's good at everything, he is the best color and doesn't really give a shit about his opponent's color.

Kid is harder to measure because in battle she is only so-so (-strenght) but Pilfer is an excellent tool (+usefulness). Then again, she is unavaible for a great chunk of the game (-usefuness). I put her in Higher Mid because when she is good she really is and I don't think she is terrible at fighting like CK is saying but I could see her lower.

Unless I am missing something big, Fargo is not awful. He steals the bloody Plates! In battle he can hold his own, deals decent damage, can take hits, Grid is not stellar but not that bad either. I didn't put him in top because he is not even close to the likes of Serge and Glenn.

I also think it is valid to take into account how the character fares against the most important bosses. Hi-Ho Tank, Garai, Miguel, that tank in Dead Sea, Dragons, whoever else I am forgeting. Dario and Criosphinx do not really count because they are optional but an argument can be made for them.
 
I would say Fargo top tier since Fargo has innate blue, which means he can heal for a lot after he's done stealing. Or at least higher than Kid anyway.

Roll tier would be Skelly, Korcha, and Pierre?

Skelly has a horrible quest to unlock him, and has bad stats all round.

Korcha has already been explained by the OP.

Pierre always seemed horrible to me. Completely out shined by other blue innate characters, bad stats, and I never liked his specials.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top