Anyways, my current party is Lynx, Norris, and Fargo. Lynx is fully outfitted with Stone Armor, while the others have a mix of Mythril and Stone equipment (the required materials to forge Stone equipment have so far been hard to come by). I've defeated the Blue and Yellow Dragons, and am in the process of finishing the Mastermune side quest (which will nab me Serge/Lynx's ultimate weapon).
One thing I like about Chrono Cross is the number of different perspectives on the story you can get. Despite having so many potential party members, the story remains cohesive- plot-centric characters will be at important events wether you have them in your party or now, and having certain party members can trigger different scenes (If Norris is in your party at The Dead Sea, for instance, you can find information about Lavos, the parasitic monstrosity from Chrono Trigger). It adds a bit of personality to the game, as the party members you've chosen change the overall feel of the story just enough to develop their characters, but the story as a whole doesn't change. I like this.
As a side note, the scene at the end of The Dead Sea (and the accompanying music, 'Prisoners of Fate') has got to be one of the most haunting moments I've seen in an RPG. The entire Dead Sea section, as a matter of fact, was excellent. Chrono trigger never stopped to wonder if there would be negative repurcussions because of the player's action, and Chrono Cross dives into some pretty deep territory here. Also, Norris is a surprisingly awesome party member. His special attacks are great.
I'll hopefully have Cross wrapped up in a week or two. With exams coming up, I probably won't be playing much next week, but I'll do my best to finish the game and have a review up before Christmas and 2012-RPG release-geddon (XIII-2, Type-0, Xenoblade Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, and Tales of Graces F have been confirmed, and Im holding out hope for The Last Story and Versus XIII as well. I'm going to be a busy gamer).
