In Japan, the Super Famicom the equivalent of the Super
Nintendo, received an add-on called the Satellaview. The
Satellaview required a RAM cartridge, to save games,
and of course access to a satellite dish to get the games in
the first place. There were many games released this way
including a Zelda game and the one we are discussing
here, Radical Dreamers from Square Soft, now SquareEnix.
Musically, Radical
Dreamers doesn’t
disappoint since
the musical score
was composed by
Yasunori Mitsuda.
Don’t know who
that is? You know
his work if you
have
played
Chrono Trigger or
Chrono Cross.
Radical Dreamers is
set in the world of
Chrono Trigger and
Chrono Cross, a game
world that is quite
popular with North
American
gamers.
This is a “gaiden”
story, aka a side story,
and is not “canon” for the main series. This explains why
Radical Dreamers was not released here.
RADICAL DREAMERS
SNES/SFAM
Chrono Trigger world gets expanded
Words: Carl Williams
Once you complete
the opening storyline, there are six more scenarios to play
through. These additional stories range from serious to
funny and everything in between while being variations
of the main storyline.
The graphics are quite nice, probably the best of the
games represented in this article. Square really went all
out on the artwork, and the aforementioned music. In
many backgrounds there are little animations like clouds
floating by, bats flapping their wings and rocking back
and forth and more.
Basically, Radical Dreamers follows the efforts of three
adventurers who are looking to make a name for
themselves as, well, thieves. The story is told by one of
these thieves, Serge, who is accompanied by Kid, a 16
year old master thief and a magic user named Magil.
They learn of Viper Manor, a score just too sweet to pass
up so they attempt it on a full moon night. That is a
recipe for disaster if I have ever heard of one.
Of all the games in this article, this is probably the one
with the least amount of actual game-play. That may turn
off some but for others, the story and music more than
make up for lack of controller activity.
Game-play is pretty sparse with Radical Dreamers as
your most used ability will be reading and
comprehending what is going on. There is fighting
creatures, using items and wandering around the levels
but that is all handled via a choice system at intervals.
Radical Dreamers is not only for the die-hard Chrono
Trigger/Cross fans, fantasy fans can get a lot of fun out of
this game. The story is great and is amplified if you are
familiar with the other two games set in this world.
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