Radical Dreamers (Switch)

 

Hard to see how it is a Chrono Trigger-game at first glance.

Finally got Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition, the remake... remaster... port(?) of the sequel of Chrono Trigger which I played before... a couple of times. Not only does it have the game Chrono Cross, but also the Satellaview-game Radical Dreamers. I almost bought a reproduction cart of that game, but decided to push it back since my assigned budget for video game expenses couldn't cover it at the time and this game was announced in the meantime. Which probably was lucky since my Retron-5 is a hit or miss with reproduction carts, especially games that officially wasn't released. And one of my sisters stills hogs the family Super Nintendo.

So what is Radical Dreamers? It's a visual novel game with random encounters where your action can get you killed in several ways, like being killed by monsters or traps out in the mansion where Serge, Kid and Margil (the thieving group Radical Dreamers) are looking for the jewel the Frozen Flame and the lord of the manor, Lord Lynx that Kid wants to kill. The first notion I got it was a Chrono Trigger-game (besides being bundled with Chrono Cross) was that they mentioned an army from Porre which was the southern continent of Trigger, and then it is revealed that the caretaker of Kid that was killed by Lynx was Lucca and that she gave the Time Egg (aka The Chrono Trigger) to Kid for safe-keeping. I also assume Magil is Magus since they look a lot like each other for the few instances of art that appears on the characters. The wikipedia article about the game also mention that Kid might be Schala as well, and that the Frozen Flame is part of Lavos and found in ruins from Zeal... I didn't get that dialog in the game, but since there appears to be 7 endings that might be understandable.

Was it a good game? Music is nice, you can't really talk about graphics but the art they show is wonderful and the story is rather good. Didn't die, but it appears to keep track on my health after battles and traps so it wouldn't surprise me. A bit short since it only took me 2-3 hours to get through without a guide (might have been faster if I would have mapped out the place). Now it's on to the real game in the package.