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. 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.

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