Chrono Cross parallels

- Serge wears a bandanna like Firion, and the game borrows FF2's game engine where you don't level up directly

- like FF6, the game has a huge cast of playable characters

- the elements system was sort of like FF7's materia system in terms of equipping individual techniques for different characters freely

- the graphics engine is almost similar to FF9, considering they were made around the same time

- like zidane, serge's weapon is a staff with a blade at each end

- CC seems to be the predecessor of FF10 and Kingdom Hearts in terms of something odd happening early in the story that has to do with the ocean

- daddy being a bad guy is used in both CC and FF10

I would argue the game has more in common with Xenogears than the FFs with the exception of FFVII.

In both Cross and Gears, Save Points are explained to be an artifact freely spread across the globe that allows the bad guys to control the population.

Speaking of which, both games feature a population that doesn't realize they are being manipulated and controlled by an outside governmental force.

Both games feature a combat system where characters create combos with an combination of Weak, Medium, and Strong attacks.

A prominent element in both plots is about mankind being an unnatural creature on the planet that owes their existence to an alien life form and a handful of people who have been "destined" to stop their creator from destroying them.

Both games have an underlying theme of making amends for the mistakes of the past

Both games have a bad habit of characters inexplicably going into philosophical tirades.

In both games the main villain of the game turns out to be the somewhat friendly female subordinate to the guy you thought was the big bad.

In both games the main characters father has been body snatched by an evil entity and the MC must put them down.

Both games feature a prominent track called Distant/Faraway Promise.





In relation to FFVII, I agree that Elements, in both their use in the story and gameplay is basically a poor man's Materia.

Both games feature a very anvilicious environmental message and accuse humans of being out of sync with the planet and even having the planet try to wipe out humanity.

Both games feature prominent use of an ancient civilizations knowledge and technology but the real similarity is that said ancients were an idealistic culture that lived as one with the planet. The difference being that humanity is an offshoot culture of the Ancients whereas the Dragonians are the descendants of the Reptites and a different species entirely.

In both stories the planet gets hijacked by a world devouring alien and it's offspring/evolved form.

In both games, the big bad is ultimately foiled/defeated by a pure hearted girl with a close relationship to the main character that started them on their whole quest to begin with. In both cases, the main character doesn't get the girl but has a childhood friend to fall back on.

Kid/Schala is more or less older than she looks (at least by game's end) in parallel to Rose from Legend of Dragoon who is also "the mysterious girl". She being critical to the plot as a more or less inhuman being is in parallel to Shana.
The father being the possessed bad guy also appears in LoD. Dragons in both games are more or less thought to be long gone.

oh yea, and the key word/ item feature is taken from ff2 as well