When a remastered version of Chrono Cross, one of the most beloved PS1 JRPGs of all time, was announced in February, it sent our Wes Fenlon’s heart all aflutter. Upon release a couple of weeks ago however, hearts were broken when the poor quality of the port became apparent. The game’s been blighted by framerate drops, stuttering, and overall performance that Digital Foundry described as "comparable to the 10-30fps range of the PlayStation original."
It seems that someone at Square Enix took a bastardised view of 'staying true to the original,' but on PC at least the game has found redemption. Modder isa has released a mod that seems to significantly improve performance, maintaining the game at its native 30fps and even going over it in moments. Check out YouTuber BltzZ’s reaction to the performance boost in the below video, which also shows some 'Before and After' the fix was implemented.
According to isa, the fix was achieved by "poking at various addresses in Cheat Engine to try and tackle the framerate issues." They went on to say "I don’t know what this actually does, but if you would like to try out it, feel free!"
The positive player feedback on this tweak motivated fellow modder KddN7 to pack it all into an IPS file, which you run using a patching tool called Lunar IPS. The patch also converts the game into a 64-bit application as a nice little bonus.
So that’s great news for PC players of Chrono Cross, though people are understandably unhappy that to get this brand new $20 remaster running properly you need to mod it as if it were some Games for Windows game from the Vista era. Once you get the fix up and running, you should try playing the game on Steam Deck (if you're one of the lucky few to have one), which Wes has freshly declared as the ultimate JRPG handheld.
