• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

Digital Foundry || Chrono Cross Remaster: PS5/Switch Tested - A Classic Returns... With Worse Performance Than PS1

ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987


The new Radical Dreamers Edition arrives with a string of extras for Chrono Cross fans, though it's far from an ideal remaster. For the PS4 release - as played on a PS5 in this video - performance is comparable to the 10-30fps range of the PlayStation original from 1999. Surprisingly there are points where it even descends to lower frame-rates in direct comparison, while using a new enhanced visuals mode. Tom and Audi reminisce over a true JRPG cult-classic - and speculate on what could have been.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
www.eurogamer.net

The new Chrono Cross remaster runs worse on PS5 than the original on PS1

Digital Foundry's technical analysis of the Chrono Cross remaster, called The Radical Dreamers Edition - is it the best…
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net
  • new music for the splash screen
  • new character art
  • AI upscaled backgrounds, also has original backgrounds too
  • doesn't seem like the AI was trained to handle the backgrounds of CC resulting in a poor upscale
  • 3D elements are around 900p to 936p, even in classic mode
  • has new models in the new mode, look good
  • menu is 1080p for ps4/switch
  • text in classic mode is a more pixalated font
  • classic mode has old illustrations, new mode has new illustrations
  • the new art is good, but on the poor ai upscaled backgrounds, there's a mismatch
  • intro FMV is upscaled but is good, seems to be denoised and interpolated
  • the FMV once you start the game, however is raw
  • some of the FMV music is compressed
  • in-game music seems to be clearer due to the emulation
  • performance is bad
  • DYNAMIC FRAMERATE!
  • 30fps exploring/battles, 60fps menues
  • in new mode, but dips a lot, can go as low as 10fps in battle during big moves
  • PS1 runs better than PS4 running on PS5
  • title screen runs at 12/13 fps, ps1 runs at 10fps. it's something, I guess
  • classic visuals run better than new visuals, runs similar to the PS1
  • Switch has the same behavior
  • there's a stutter during the victory pose that wasn't in the PS1, probably won't be noticeable due to the already low framerate
  • game is emulated, possibly wrapper and injection script causing performance issues
  • Switch handheld seems to run better
 
Last edited:
Diogo Arez

Diogo Arez

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 20, 2020
17,626
This is just baffling, this must be the worst performing game on PS5 and even on PS4 like a top 3 contender
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,881
That's... some headline lol. I'll give it a watch, DF do excellent work. Its insanely disappointing that there's any FPS drops on a game this old, makes me wonder why you'd remaster a game and NOT fix the performance to at least a locked 30FPS if not 60FPS (depending whether the game doesnt have additional issues with a higher FPS...)
On the bright side, getting Radical Dreamers translated officially finally IS a cool addition.
 
Richietto

Richietto

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,964
North Carolina
Like fuckin how SE? The absolute massive range of their remasters performance and quality is crazy. Have some fuckin respect for your shit. Like mandate a baseline quality for your shit or something?
 
StereoVSN

StereoVSN

Member
Nov 1, 2017
13,620
Eastern US
I now want to see comparison with a Switch performance. Got to be pretty similar since it's clearly not hardware holding the release back.
 
Dust

Dust

C H A O S
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,169
performance is comparable to the 10-30fps range of the PlayStation original from 1999
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

final-fantasy-giggle.gif
 
Wrexis

Wrexis

Member
Nov 4, 2017
21,230
Been playing on Steam for a few hours and it's fine.
I acknowledge the console issues but I do hope people give this game a chance to get fixed.

I don't want the Chrono legacy to be tarnished and dumped forever by this.
 
Geobros

Geobros

Member
Dec 31, 2018
670
So that means it would be better to play the original? I have never played the game and I am a great fan of Chrono Trigger. I want the best experience for that game....
 
Dust

Dust

C H A O S
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,169
inb4 the FFT remaster has the fucking infamous PS1 slowdowns during battles
 
Mivey

Mivey

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,820
Damn, next gen consoles already showing their age. Hopefully the PS6 will save the day and provide the sorely needed performance for Square's atrocious PS1 ports.
 
CHC

CHC

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,246
It's honestly just amazing how they continue to fuck up these ports time and time again. I mean modders have got FFVII running at 60 FPS with full analog support and pristine looking upscaled backgrounds, meanwhile for Chrono Cross the actual studio who made the original game can't even match original performance.

I get that it's not easy to dig around in these old PS1 games and make them run on modern systems, but the games aren't free either. They could be so good, but again and again, they're so bad before the community comes along and cleans up the mess.
 
Mary Celeste

Mary Celeste

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,176
Wrexis said:
Been playing on Steam for a few hours and it's fine.
I acknowledge the console issues but I do hope people give this game a chance to get fixed.

I don't want the Chrono legacy to be tarnished and dumped forever by this.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If it makes you feel better I and a friend of mine are first timers to this (and I'm a first timer to chrono in general!) and we're having a blast with the game on switch. The performance issues are annoying but they don't overshadow the wonderful game underneath. I'm sure regular game-players outside of hobbyist forums who check it out will feel similarly.
 
StereoVSN

StereoVSN

Member
Nov 1, 2017
13,620
Eastern US
Mary Celeste said:
If it makes you feel better I and a friend of mine are first timers to this (and I'm a first timer to chrono in general!) and we're having a blast with the game on switch. The performance issues are annoying but they don't overshadow the wonderful game underneath. I'm sure regular game-players outside of hobbyist forums who check it out will feel similarly.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The issue is that buying these badly done ports you are essentially rewarding SE's shoddy work.

Edit: And as above stated, if modders can provide FFVII and IX with amazing upscaled graphics, backgrounds, bug cleanup, better or cleaned up translation and more, what's SE's excuse? It's just tiresome to see them repeat their shit ad nauseum and expect folks to lap it up.
 
jett

jett

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,653
The people that Squeenix continually puts in charge of porting their old games is literally one of the worst devteams in the entire industry as far as I'm concerned. Just pure incompetence.
 
Jazzem

Jazzem

Member
Feb 2, 2018
2,680
It's a shame as there's much that's good about this; the wonderful new character illustrations, the huge amount of new localisation done (multiple European languages for both games + English for the first time in Radical Dreamers) and heck...even the font, often a misfire in Square rereleases, is quite nice!

But aye...it's very, very rough around the edges, and sadly not unexpectedly :(

It should be mentioned as well that Radical Dreamers, while otherwise a very solid version and a rerelease I am ecstatic to see finally happen...has a hideous bilinear filter on the artwork you can't disable D:

image.png
 
cowbanana

cowbanana

Member
Feb 2, 2018
13,674
a Socialist Utopia
Embarrassing. Pathetic. These words spring to mind whenever S-E is mentioned these days. It's like they don't give a shit about what they shovel out the door anymore. Be it terrible PC ports, or just terrible, technical messes overall, like this game.
 
Hoggle

Hoggle

Member
Mar 25, 2021
6,109
The good news is Square is pretty decent with patches. They fixed the music loop on the old FF release. About a year later. And only certain consoles got the patch. So have faith.
 
doof_warrior

doof_warrior

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,431
NJ
square should just save the money and headache and not even bother if this is what theyre going to do with these fucking "remasters" and just sell the untouched ps1 versions in an emulator (since sony refuses to do it)

this is pathetic
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,881
Mary Celeste said:
There's no issue with buying a cool game to enjoy, SE isn't gonna be significantly swayed into altering their port handling practices one way or another based on the performance of this title
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's one opinion. But like the other poster said, Im not in the habit of giving companies money to put out piss poor efforts like this. 10FPS? No game should be hitting that FPS these days, especially not a remaster of a 4 generation old PS1 game... Im glad your enjoying the game for the first time, but Im absolutely disappointed at how this was handled...
 
StereoVSN

StereoVSN

Member
Nov 1, 2017
13,620
Eastern US
Jazzem said:
It should be mentioned as well that Radical Dreamers, while otherwise a very solid version and a rerelease I am ecstatic to see finally happen...has a hideous bilinear filter on the artwork you can't disable D:

image.png
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Wait, why, that doesn't make sense why they wouldn't even give an option to disable that. I guess it's SE so it's pointless to guess.

At least in PC I am sure there will be a way to mod it out.
 
UltimateHigh

UltimateHigh

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,500
I assume the Xbox version is no better? or even worse.

anyone who bought this shit on console should be asking for a refund.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.