
Unfinished as Kato felt it was, those story gaps left fans hungry for more Chrono, and Radical Dreamers provided that during the Satellaview era…and beyond. Chrono Cross may be the fully realized dream ( or closer to it, anyway) conceived in Radical Dreamers, but without the context of Radical Dreamers, much of its plot feels like a strange diversion for a direct sequel. Schala herself almost entirely vanishes to the periphery despite the entire plot of all three games, technically, revolving around her role. Magil, who provides a critical tie between Radical Dreams and Chrono Trigger, is completely erased, seemingly in favor of the elusive but relatively plot-incidental Guile in Cross. But characters like Kid, Serge, and Lynx undergo massive transformations between the two. Though Kato never did return to revise Radical Dreamers, he did get to revisit some of the unfinished plot points again in Chrono Cross, especially those related to the nature of the coveted Frozen Flame jewel at the heart of both Radical and Cross’ plots. Such a short, unfinished piece of work like Radical Dreamers being released at all is an astonishing rarity in this industry, where games are so frequently and easily canceled for much less. Though initially not intended to be a Chrono Trigger follow-up, Kato eventually opted to continue the story of Magus and Schala, to “properly tie up the loose ends.” But Kato regarded the work as half-finished, going so far as to imply he held it back from including it alongside the Chrono Trigger DS release in 2008 out of a desire to revise it. Kato says it came about initially almost like an independent film, put together in just three months’ time.

In fact, Radical Dreamers’ links to Trigger’s events and characters like Schala, Lavos, Magus, and Lucca are far more explicit and tonally different than the outcomes of the more popular sequel.īut even in providing some story clarity, according to director Masato Kato, Radical Dreamers was itself an unfinished dream. Certain paths will take Serge to a game over, and after beating Radical Dreamers once there are also multiple alternate endings to unlock in true Chrono spirit.įor those coming to Radical Dreamers from Chrono Cross, it may be a surprise to discover that Serge and Kid’s personalities and backstories are dramatically different from their more mainstream appearances, particularly with the ways in which Kid’s story connects back to Chrono Trigger even more explicitly than in Cross. Gameplay is entirely choice-based, with characters able to select actions for Serge as the trio encounters monsters, traps, and other obstacles throughout the manor. The Radical Dreamers story follows a trio of thieves: Serge, Kid, and Magil, in a quest to infiltrate the maze-like Viper Manor and steal a strange gem called the Frozen Flame. And that’s why its release alongside the remaster is so exciting. Chrono Trigger lovers wanted a clearer connection between the two, which was exactly what Radical Dreamers provided…if they could get their hands on it, which many of them understandably haven’t been able to easily.

Its links to Chrono Trigger are strange ones, with many fan-favorite characters receiving implied endings off-screen and others not mentioned at all. Chrono Cross was well received when it first launched on PS1, but it wasn’t the direct sequel to Chrono Trigger many fans did, and still do, hope for.
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The Chrono series as a whole has had a strange life since the SNES. This means that probably fewer than 100,000 people in Japan played Radical Dreamers in its original form, a diminished number compared to Chrono Trigger, its revered predecessor that reportedly sold two million copies in its first two months on sale in Japan. The Satellaview apparently had around 100,000 subscribers sometime around 1997, a fantastic number for the satellite company behind it, St.GIGA, but an abysmal number for Nintendo, who was producing it. Radical Dreamers is a text-based adventure game originally released in 1996 for the Satellaview, a Japanese-exclusive Super Famicom peripheral for downloading games and other media through satellite broadcasts. Radical Dreamers is a mysterious beast, a game somehow even more out-of-space-and-time than Chrono Cross, and its inclusion in this 2022 re-release is a delightful surprise, as its existence isn’t something you’re likely to know about, unless you’re a die-hard, very online Chrono fan.
