BS Radical Dreamers
This feature is written by: Kwyj
 

Doesn't Chrono's hairdo just look gorgeous in 3D..? ^_^ Japanese text. A lot of it.     A few animations, some nice music, a few pretty-looking background images, but mostly just lots and lots and lots of Japanese text. Occasionally a menu comes up and you select an option, but that's it as far as interaction goes. Such is the wonder that is Radical Dreamers, yet another mysterious BS-X game.       You might be wondering why anyone would even bother with this so-called game; to someone who doesn't read Japanese, it has about as much gaming substance as the digital magazines that were released for the BS-X, or any Japanese magazine for that matter.       There's just one small problem, though... The Squaresoft logo is on the title screen, and Square would never release something so completely pointless, would it? [Insert FFVIII joke here.]       Well, there is indeed a very big point to all this Japanese text, and that is that Radical Dreamers is in fact the sequel to Chrono Trigger, the smash SNES hit that has been called one of the greatest RPGs ever created. Chrono Trigger director Masato Kato wrote the script and directed, and famous composer Yasunori Mitsuda did the atmospheric music.

   

Thanks to all the fuss over the new PSX sequel to Chrono Cross, there is actually a little bit of information on Radical Dreamers out there. Radical Dreamers is in fact a continuation of one of the subplots from Chrono Trigger, and follows the adventures of Serge, Kid, and Gill as they venture through Yamaneko's (Lynx) mansion in search for the Frozen Flame. Returning elements with noteable roles supposedly include Magus, the Masamune, and the Time Egg. The fate of several other Chrono Trigger characters is also ultimately revealed indirectly. Kid and her friends...     "But wait!" you might exclaim. "Isn't Chrono Cross on the PSX the sequel to Chrono Trigger?" Well, according to this interview with director Masato Kato, Chrono Cross was a project that came after Xenogears, when it was decided to "redo Radical Dreamers properly."       All of the nice little Square touches are here... There are seven different endings, and the game takes 5-6 hours to complete (a great deal of Japanese text indeed). The gameplay apparently consists of selecting from the limited options from the menus that pop up occasionally (open door, walk down hallway, etc), in the same sort of style as those old Choose Your Own Adventure books. Of course, not speaking Japanese, I for one can't really verify this information. Even without speaking Japanese, though, you can still tell that the atmosphere of this game is rather dark and brooding from the music and the pictures. Yamaneko's (Lynx) cats...     Truly, there really isn't much for a non-Japanese-speaking person to get out of this game, aside from a few relatively nice pictures and some very, very nice music. Occasionally, after flipping through a menus (and lots and lots and lots of Japanese text) the music changes and you'll enter something that seems like a battle, with different menu commands for fighting and defending. If you're not lucky the screen will flash and you'll get what appears to be some kind of Game Over message. If you are lucky (and the term is used relatively here), the battle will "end" and you'll continue reading lots and lots of Japanese text until you get to another menu, ad naseum. Aside from the screen flashing and shaking, though, there is barely any kind of animation during these battles.       Without a good English translation, it seems that Radical Dreamers is forever destined to remain the stuff of footnotes in Chrono Cross FAQs and nothing more. We may never really know what angle this game takes on the whole Chrono Trigger saga. It's a shame, too, because if there's a good, well-written story to go along with such quality music and art, Radical Dreamers might have been a very entertaining experience, if not much of a gaming experience.

Yamaneko's (Lynx) mansion...

Continue the tour for more pictures...

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