Let's Steal An Unstealable Jewel - Radical Dreamers

♪Days of Summer♪

Welcome, Talking Time, to this let's play of Radical Dreamers: Le Trésor Interdit. This is a visual novel "sequel" to Chrono Trigger released in 1996 by Square for the Satellaview in Japan only. That of course means this game is pretty inaccessible these days unless you speak Japanese and want to pay several hundred dollars for a Satellaview cartridge with the game's data on it.

Thankfully, fans stepped up with an excellent translation in 2003, making the game available for the first time to English speaking audiences.

Since Chrono Trigger is such a popular game around these parts (It's one of Talking Time's favorites, second only to Super Metroid) I thought you might be interested in seeing it's first follow up. To be entirely honest though, this game is much closer to Chrono Cross. It shares many of the same characters, and the plot is basically a chunk of Cross that has been further explored with some variation.

There are key differences that address some of the problems in Chrono Cross however. First is that there are no additional party members, so the problem of having fourty under-developed characters isn't a problem. It's plot is generally more straightforward, and the end doesn't reek of budget constraints in the same way.

I like both Cross and Trigger, and when I played this for the first time a few years ago was a pleasantly surprised. I'll be very interested to see your reactions as we go.

In addition, I will be providing music from the soundtrack for each scene. I feel that the sound is important in establishing the mood of the game, so I encourage you to listen as you read each update.

I look forward to this! I never could get very far in Radical Dreamers.

I'm not demanding, I just want every single ending.

Also, it's worth noting that one of the translation guys has posted here before.

Radical Dreamers is what Chrono Cross would've been like if its story wasn't such a mess and kept with Trigger's simpler approach - i.e. actually pretty good. A shame it took the CYOA approach to game design, but I like it when game series take a turn for the quirky.

Totally looking forward to this, by the way. Will you just be running through the main story or will we get to see all the different variations?

Will Chrono Cross make sense after this? If so then I'll follow this LP, if not, then why would I watch something this is going to confuse me more regarding a subject on which I am already very confused?

Well, since the intro in the first post is presented in Chronopolis as an alternate reality, I don't think it will help much in understanding Cross. It's mostly self-contained.

And yes, I plan to get all the endings.

I find the music and atmosphere for this game completely enchanting.

The connection isn't that big. They decided to remake the Radical Dreamers sequence into the Viper Manor mission, then built a game around that.

Or something to that effect.

Holy crap, another LP I'm totally gonna keep up on. I've wanted to play through the translation of this, but I haven't found an emulator that's "Satellaview Friendly" as far as its save system goes. The closest I got was using save states in SNES9x.

Looking forward to this; the farthest I went was to that boss battle with the goblins in the fake Frozen Flame room.

Yeah, but it still involves the cast of Chrono Trigger being dead. At least we get the honest-to-goodness Magus out of it.

Not in the slightest! As others have said, the story of RD is referenced in a control panel in Chronopolis as one of many possible alternate realities, but other than similar situations involving familiar characters, there are no true parallels, much less clues to help you understand Cross' mess of a plot.

I'd probably enjoy Cross more if Lord Viper's Viper Manor had half the booby traps and adventure elements that Lynx's Viper Manor has in Radical Dreamers.

Le slow est indeed le pew. I can't think of anything more fun than a game based primarily around reading with a slow text crawl.

The only sounds right now are those of running water and chirping crickets.




I will, of course, incorporate all of these details into my fanfiction update.


I'm sure none of those will come back to bite us later.


Another world you say? What nonsense.




This theft is off to a bad start. Ambushed before we even make it into the manor.

♪Gale♪

This how the battles work in Radical Dreamers. Most of the normal rpg options are available, but when selected, their effects are a little different than normal. It's also worth noting that if you dwell too long on this menu, the cats will attack you. I'd guess that this is an attempt to bring some of the feeling of the ATB system into this new battle system.

Most of the other options won't do us any good (Serge is no mage, there's not much to defend with and being surrounded means that running isn't an option)

Attacking again.






VICTORY!

♪Under the Moonlight♪


Where, thankfully, there are no cats.


I get the feeling that I don't have a choice in this matter. Let's go.


Go me.




She proclaims his doom a lot.



Passages extend to the left and right. Whichever way we turn, darkness awaits...

So Talking Time, Left or Right?

I've tried playing this multiple times, but never really made it anywhere. The somewhat arbitrary nature of the battles plus the fact that many bad choices lead to death annoyed me. I suppose I could have resorted to save scumming. Oh well, at least the music is fantastic although this is not surprising given that it was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda. Plus it is always fun to hear the tracks that were reused for Chrono Cross.


Go down the sinister path! (a.k.a. the left one)

> GO LEFT

Whatever brings you closer to the Piranhas.

I've always been curious about this game. Despite my love for Chrono Trigger, from the little I've seen, I don't think I could really get into the gameplay. Although, it's supposed to be short, right? So, I guess there's that.

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

Oops, forgot to pick a direction: Let's go left!

♪ Life is peaceful there! ♪

I had forgotten how much Lynx's own FeralCats Lv3 Tech in Chrono Cross reference the Ambush Cats in Radical Dreamers.

Someone's got to choose what's RIGHT.

I savestated my way through this game once when the patch was freshly done, and it was a great time. Good to see this here. The music really helps make the mood for this one.

My favorite John Candy movie? Wagons RIGHT.

LEFT is right.

♪Sneaking Around♪

I am Sinistar! Er... no wait, sinister. Whatever, we're going left.




Another choice. The lefties got their way last time. Let's try going right.

♪Snake Bone Mansion♪




I doubt we'll find anything of value in the painting or books. Let's give the desk a go.


Damn. Not even something incriminating.


Spoke too soon. *To Catch a Predator joke*

Suddenly, the music fades.


Oh shit! Under the desk, quick!


Man this is tense.

Apparently not so tense that Serge's mind isn't somewhere else though.


Porre? The tiny town in the corner of the map of Chrono Trigger with the mayor who really liked beef jerky? When did they become a force to be reckoned with?


Back to important things!


Not being a weirdo, for instance.


Huh. That's interesting. Maybe this is alternate timeline where Chrono didn't give the jerky and they became an aggressive nation.

♪Sneaking Around♪


Left and right have been exhausted. Let's go down the stairs ahead.


I know it looks like we're going up, but that's just the way it looks in the game. I guess they just wanted to make one animation for the stairs and call it a day.


And now we'll cover our last voter, Garrison!

The music fades, leaving only the sound of running water.


That statue is creepy as hell. Just look at it.

That'll teach you not to play around the creepy statue.


It's a trap!

♪Gale♪


We can't fight these, there are too many of them! Retreat!

♪Sneaking Around♪




Perhaps we've learned from our previous experience with creepy sculptures.


Obviously not! What the hell is wrong with you guys?

Of course something horrible happens!


Or maybe we should stop putting our hands in places where something can bite them.


Oh, I see. I have to test this, huh?

NEXT TIME: We stick all kinds of shit in that mouth!

SPECIAL RAISINS.

Centipedes? In Kid's pockets?

(It's more likely than you think)

The Mouth of Truth could use a makeover. Use the lipstick!

> USE EXPLOSION ON MOUTH