Radical Dreamers

"Great for text-gamers, story-lovers, and Chrono series fanatics"

Despite the fact I've not played Chrono Cross, I have enjoyed Chrono Trigger (played through it *completely* at least 10 times by now, owned for 5 years). Being a retro gamer of sorts who enjoys reading, I really found myself falling deeply into the interactive fiction (or text-game) style of Radical Dreamers.

Gameplay - During the whole game, there is a very simple system of choosing your actions that will be quite familiar to most text-game players, though probably awkward for anyone who prefers a more direct approach (press left key, you go left, etc.). But there is much to choose from and patterns to learn and relearn even with the only choices being 'duck' 'attack' and 'use a spell', for example. It could be insanely easy or really hard depending on how you pick up on the patterns, though the results seem random during battles that can reoccur throughout the game. How you react to former battles or puzzles can even affect what choices you can make in your current situation.

Story - It's really all up to the choices you make and which scenario you pick, which makes for quite an intricate/dramatic/comedic/whatever kind of story. You can act weird (or perverted.. this stuff isn't all PG), dumb or smart as you say or do. I've only played through it all once so far to the end, and I'm sure even in choosing the same scenario again there are other things I could have done to affect the ending.

Audio/Video - Considering the time of the game, I'd have to say it's simple but well-rendered graphics, moving music (done by Nobuo Uematsu or(?) Yasunori Mitsuda, composers of Chrono Trigger) but both are used to good effect. Some may be disappointed to see most of the pictures used in the game are stills or repeating patterns (staircases and doors), and there are only a few actual animated characters or backgrounds. (On a side note, it reminded me of the Resident Evil Remake for GCN, lighting effects and other ambient objects in an otherwise rather still room). The sounds effects are your typical Chrono Trigger fare more or less, and help add ambience even though they aren't terribly sophisticated by today's standards (dripping water in dungeons, creaking doors, weird digitized screams).

Replayability - As I've said before, this game has probably as many endings as there are scenarios, making it very replayable. I've yet to do so, partly because I'm the type that will want to go after EVERYTHING in a game, endings, items and rare lines of dialogue included.. which at this rate could take a month of playing (with sleep and food) to do.

To buy or to rent? - I used the JP ROM (through ZSNES) to play it, with an English patch made recently (it's April 2003 at the time I'm writing). I'm not going to say where I got either of them, but it was definitely worth the headaches of finding them both. Good thing is that once you get both of them you don't need any extra utilities to get the patch ready. 'Nicorette' will do it for you once you get the ROM named like the program specifies.

Overall Opinion - This is a very good game for those with imagination and who love a good story (and can live with reading a small novel's worth of text..). I feel sad that several games like this never made it to the American market when the N64 hype was on and people were letting their old SNES rot in the closet.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/30/03, Updated 04/30/03