Chrono Cross is an incredible JRPG, but I remember being really curious when I learned it had its roots in a visual novel called Radical Dreamers. It took a few years, but I finally played it and I wanted to write my thoughts about the game as my parting article tonight.
Radical Dreamers was published in 1996 for the Satellaview, the Super Famicom’s satellite peripheral. But it never received an official port until recently. Its director, Masato Kato, said in an interview that he’d been reluctant to release Radical Dreamers because he considered it incomplete and even felt embarrassed about it. Square Enix asked him several more times and he only agreed when he saw copies were selling at a premium price.
I’m glad he relented. It was officially published as part of Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition in 2022. I could understand why Kato might have been hesitant, but the visual novel is really well-written and it’s also an interesting adventure for fans of the Chrono series.
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A few years after the events of Chrono Trigger, a group of three infiltrate Viper’s Manor in the hopes of pilfering the Frozen Flame. Kid, a character we’d see again in Chrono Cross, is still the thief with attitude, whereas Serge, as narrator, has a bit more personality this time compared to Cross’ version of the main protagonist. He does his best to keep up while smitten with Kid. Magil, who is essentially Magus from Chrono Trigger in all but two letters, is their third companion. He’s a powerful magician that saves the party multiple times. He also seems to know more about what’s going on.
Players navigate Viper’s Manor to find the Frozen Flame, but it’s clear Kid has an overriding agenda. She wants revenge on its owner, Lynx, for hurting someone dear to her. The writing helps build the atmosphere because the visuals are very limited. Even the battles are described through text as Serge and the party confront eerie ghosts and groups of goblins. Players can choose Serge’s actions, whether it be attacking, using magic, or defending himself. There’s no listed HP and the only way you can tell how healthy Serge is based on how the text describes his condition.
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Your actions impact your relationship with Kid, though not Magil. Do something she likes, such as winning a battle without getting hurt, and she’ll be impressed. Do something dumb, like pick the wrong book while looking for a key in the library area, and the inverse happens.
Healing is done in specific encounters, like an old lady in the Clocktower Storage who’ll patch your wounds. You can also save almost anywhere, which helped in instances where I’d made the wrong choice and gotten Serge killed.
Tying everything together is the music by Yasunori Mitsuda which is excellent. Many of the tracks would be adapted for Chrono Cross, including the battle theme, and they’re a perfect fit for Viper Manor.
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As we moved from room to corridor to stairway, it unexpectedly reminded me more of the very first Resident Evil as well as the adventure game Shadowgate (just without the pointing and clicking) than it did the other Chrono games. Radical Dreamers mixes horror and fantasy in interesting ways. In the atrium, there’s killer fish called piranadons that attack from the fountain. A ceiling in the Chamber of Death is full of spikes and can crush them into a Serge sandwich. Each time, players have to react by selecting the right move before they get hurt. As they progress, Serge jokes, “Don’t worry, this isn’t about to turn into some dumb ghost story.” At the same time, regrets and past horrors haunt the residents of the manor.
The Chrono games have always had dark themes that are offset by the appealing visuals and light-hearted banter. Some of that banter is here, but overall, it has a much darker tone reinforced by the environments. I think it works because of Magil, whose tragic past and role as the initial villain in Trigger, evoke that same feeling. I knew his presence in the party couldn’t be coincidental. Was it somehow connected with the events of Zeal and his sister, Schala?
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A mirror reveals part of the truth about Kid’s past. She grew up an orphan and the woman who raised her was murdered by Lynx. That’s why she wants revenge. We later learn the identity of the woman and her connection to the characters in Chrono Trigger, which was heartbreaking.
There’s also Riddel, the daughter of Lynx. At first, Kid threatens to kill her as she assumes Riddel wants to protect her dad. But she actually wants to help you because Lynx killed her real father, General Viper, so he could seize the Frozen Flame for himself. She also tells you the truth about the old man who’s gone mad in the dungeon as he was the one who betrayed their kingdom and now torments himself with guilt.
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There are eccentric elements that add to the charm of the journey, like a mouse who got trapped and begs you to save him, but transforms into a griffin and attacks the party. There’s also a bespectacled goblin who invites you to drink a tea called “healmyailin.” He’ll give you an important key if you tell him a good story.
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Eventually, the party finds the Frozen Flame and the Trigger fan in me was thrilled when Magil reveals that it’s “the ruins of the lost kingdom of mages.” The manor either was built around the fallen remains of Zeal or had somehow transported parts of it there. Magil explains that the flame “is part of a tremendous rock that fell from the skies long, long ago. That rock was the source of a hitherto-unknown power, with which mankind’s hidden potential was unlocked. You could say that it was humanity’s dreams made manifest. But it is not always good to have one’s dreams come true.” Magil, with “a hint of pain and sadness” in his voice, reveals, “Many were bewitched by that great power… It even led to a kingdom’s ruin… now little more than fragments and dust, its name lost to history.”
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In the final confrontation, Lynx explains he wanted Kid to reach him so he could seize the Time Egg from her. That’s because he believes combining the egg with the flame will allow him to “bend the fabric of space and time, and rewrite the past. There are errors that I mean to correct. Mistakes in the past that must be set right.” Although Cross would expand on that in his connection with FATE and Serge’s father, in Radical Dreamers, Lynx seems to have nobler, if misguided, motives.
The key to survival are the love points Serge has with Kid. If they’re not high enough, Lynx will prevail, resulting in the bad ending. While almost all the characters are suffering from broken relationships (Magil with his sister Schala, Kid with Lucia, Riddel with her father, etc), I thought that it was an interesting choice to make the strength of your bond with Kid be the key to overcoming adversity. Love conquers all?
Not really because in the end, no one gets what they want. Lynx escapes. Kid finds out the truth about her own identity, but parts with Serge. The optional endings were fun, but left me wanting more.
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Even though the experience was short (I clocked in slightly over an hour), I enjoyed the reunion with these old characters. Yes, Serge was different from the one in Cross as this is supposedly an alternate version. Magil was also replaced by Guile for Cross, although there is a secret ending in the DS version of Trigger that seems to suggest they’re one and the same. But I still am glad I got to spend a little more time with each of them.
Now my radical dream is that we one day get an official sequel for either Chrono Trigger or Cross, or both. We can all dream, right?