Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition Finally Revealed
Late last year, it leaked out that Square Enix was working on a remastered version of the Playstation 1 classic Chrono Cross. It being December, the only possible venue to make such an announcement that month was the Game Awards, and we wasted our time with that entire mess waiting for the official reveal — and got nothing. We wanted to kick Jeff’s arse so hard, he’d kiss the moons! (We did it anyway, but for an unrelated reason.)
But now everything’s cool….Square has finally admitted Chrono Cross is coming back. And we’re getting more than we anticipated: not only are the usual HD pixel improvements a part of it, but so is the proto-Chrono-Cross released for the Super NES Satteleview in 1996: Radical Dreamers! This weird little side story was a text adventure you could only play if you lived in Japan (or, years later, downloaded a translated ROM). It contains early versions of Kid, Lynx and Glenn, and they made a cheeky reference to it in Chrono Cross at one point, confusing anyone who wasn’t savvy enough to know obscure Square trivia.
Chrono Cross is sort of a sequel to Chrono Trigger, though it helps if you don’t think of it as one (CT fans did not like the departure in tone, nor the mean fates it gave to the cast of that game). What CC DOES have going for it is atmosphere — the cool tropical setting is one of the most fascinating and enthralling Square ever cooked up. Even better is the music: many consider the CC soundtrack to be the greatest ever composed for a video game, and so do I.
Here’s what’s new:
- 3D models converted to HD*
- Brand new artwork and character redesign by Nobuteru Yuuki*
- Refined background music by Yasunori Mitsuda
- Switch enemy encounters on or off
- Background filter feature*
- Battle enhancement features
- Auto-battle function
- French, Italian, German and Spanish localization now added
- Switch between imitation pixel font and HD font*
- The inclusion of Radical Dreamers, never before released in the West.
- Players can choose between playing with original or updated graphics*
That is correct: if you don’t like the HD upscales, you can turn them off and play the game in plxelated classic mode. The mention of “refined background music” worries me. It won’t be too different, will it? We can have the original soundtrack too, right?
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition will be out for Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, XBox One and PC via Steam April 7. Check out the trailer, and this cool new piece of official art:
Did you find Starky?