Square’s 1999 follow-up to Chrono Trigger, written and directed by Masato Kato with music by Yasunori Mitsuda, is set in the El Nido archipelago. Serge, a boy from the fishing village of Arni, slips into a parallel world where he died ten years earlier, and more than 40 characters can join him as he moves between the two worlds. If you own the game, Nagori lets you play both discs on iPhone and iPad.
What you need
- An iPhone or iPad with iOS 17.6 or later.
- Nagori from the App Store. Your first game is free.
- Disc images of both discs of your copy of Chrono Cross:
.chd,.cue+.bin,.pbp,.isoor.img, or.zipor.rararchives containing them.
No BIOS file is needed.
How to play Chrono Cross on iPhone
- Install Nagori from the App Store.
- Name the disc images with their disc number, for example
Chrono Cross (Disc 1).chdandChrono Cross (Disc 2).chd, and copy them to the Files app, in iCloud Drive or On My iPhone. - Open Nagori, tap + and select both discs. For
.cueimages, select each.cuetogether with its.binfile, or add the archives they came in. - Find Chrono Cross on the PS1 shelf, one game with its box art, and press Play.
Two discs, one game
With (Disc 1) and (Disc 2) in the file names, Nagori knows the discs belong together: one case on the shelf, one memory card for both.
- Play always starts from Disc 1.
- When the game asks for Disc 2, pause and choose Change Disc. The row shows which disc is in, for example Disc 1 of 2.
- Your saves carry over. The save you make before the switch is on the memory card when Disc 2 starts.
- Continue puts you back exactly where you stopped. If you load from the title screen instead and the game asks for the other disc, choose Change Disc again.
Finishing the story unlocks New Game+, which starts the adventure again from Disc 1 and carries your progress over. If the game asks for a disc at that point, choose Change Disc the same way. You can’t recruit every character in one playthrough, so a second run is how you meet the ones you missed.
Controls
Battles are turn-based and run from menus: each character spends stamina on weak, strong and fierce attacks, then casts the Elements you’ve placed on their grid. Nothing depends on quick reflexes, so the Standard touch layout works well. On the field you walk with the D-pad, and most enemies are visible before a fight starts, so you can often walk around them.
On iPhone the game’s 4:3 picture leaves black bars on both sides. If the touch controls cover part of a battle menu, pause, open Settings → Edit Layout and drag them into those bars, or make them smaller.
With a controller, every button sits where it did on the PlayStation pad, and the left stick works as the D-pad too. Press the left stick to open the pause menu.
Saves and boss fights
Chrono Cross saves to its memory card at save points and from the world map. Nagori adds two things:
- Save states before bosses. Characters only grow so far until you beat the next boss, so you can’t grind your way past a hard one. Pause and choose Save before the fight. If it goes wrong, Load and try another set of Elements. Nagori keeps your last four saves per game.
- Quit any time. Leave in the middle of a dungeon and Continue puts you back on the same screen.
Best settings
Towns and fields are pre-rendered backgrounds with 3D characters walking over them, and battles are fully 3D.
- Quality: High, the default, renders the characters and battles at twice the original resolution. The backgrounds keep their original detail.
- Quality: Low keeps everything at the original resolution, so the characters match the backgrounds.
- Precise Geometry, in Advanced Settings, steadies the slight wobble of PS1 polygons in battle.
- Screen Effects → CRT Screen adds scanlines that blend the characters into the painted backgrounds, as a 1990s TV did.
