Radical Dreamers is the orginal sequel to Chrono Trigger that was only released in Japan for the Super Nintendo/Super Famicon add on called the Satellaview. It is not only the basis for Chrono Cross' plot line, but it also ties up many of the loose ends in Chrono Trigger's plot line. Radical Dreamers, though, was more of a text based game than the traditional RPG, as you play by making choices after reading screens of text. Unfortunatly, the game was never released here, and for those who would try and find the rom, I hope your Japanese is pretty darn good. Without being able to understand the words in a text-based game, the game itself won't make much sense and you won't get much out of it.
The plot of Radical Dreamers, as best I can gather from various translation projects that are on the go follows the characters, Sege, Kid, and Gill. Those who have played Chrono Cross will and should recognize Serge and Kid. These three are on a quest to steal the Frozen Flame (which CC people should also recognize) from Yamaneko, who is known as Lynx in CC. Gill, the one character you probably don't recognize actually reveals himself to be Magus from CT at or near the end of the game.
Radical Dreamers is considered the true Chrono Trigger sequel as the main reason for its creation was to tie up loose plot ends from CT. Chrono Cross is basically a continuation of both Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers, as you can probably tell from the similarities in the plots of Chrono Cross and Radical Dreamers.
Guess what! Radical Dreamers has been translated into English, and about time too. You can play it on your SNES emulators. Since CT fans everywhere should get to play it, I am putting it up. Download it here and have fun. Oh and remember the twenty-four hours deletion rule if you don't own it, but really now, they can't loose profit if it wasn't released here.
Thanks to numerous other Chrono Series Sites for the info on Radical Dreamers. Square History, ChronoNexus, and Chronogamer to name a few.
