Satellaview. Dude you got an official translated release for the Satellaview text adventure sequel of Chrono Trigger in 2022. That alone pretty much makes this thing worth checking out. The music in Radical Dreamers is unnecessarily good and it still kind of boggles my mind that the sequel (because it is) to one of the most renowned games in history is still hanging out in obscurity after all these years.
As far as the remaster itself, you can enjoy it in chunky straight-rom form, or ai-upscaled background form. I prefer the latter, although neither look quite as good as finely tuned emulation settings, but I don't think a remaster can ever really pull that off. I like the decision they made with letting you pick either raw or upscaled. I did not notice the framerate issues people are shrieking about... the framerate seems completely analogous to the original to me.
The No Encounters cheat is very welcome as random encounters really just serve as roadblocks in this game, offering little reward.
The one thing that does pretty much straight up suck are the FMVs. They upscaled the intro, demonstrating that they have the ability to do so, then left the rest in the same chunky PS1 resolution. This is especially egregious during the ending. The "good ending" has some FMV scenes that are supposed to communicate some story ideas to you... and they are almost indecipherable. That was for me in 1080p. I'm imagining in 4k they may be truly horrid.
A freshly localized Radical Dreamers and a mostly tasteful remaster of Chrono Cross makes this a pretty sweet package. Cross on an emulator with the 3D downscaling and a good CRT filter is still the best way to "look" at the game, but this remaster is probably the best way to "play" the game. Also, Radical Dreamers wooty. It's a text adventure. That's awesome.
As far as the remaster itself, you can enjoy it in chunky straight-rom form, or ai-upscaled background form. I prefer the latter, although neither look quite as good as finely tuned emulation settings, but I don't think a remaster can ever really pull that off. I like the decision they made with letting you pick either raw or upscaled. I did not notice the framerate issues people are shrieking about... the framerate seems completely analogous to the original to me.
The No Encounters cheat is very welcome as random encounters really just serve as roadblocks in this game, offering little reward.
The one thing that does pretty much straight up suck are the FMVs. They upscaled the intro, demonstrating that they have the ability to do so, then left the rest in the same chunky PS1 resolution. This is especially egregious during the ending. The "good ending" has some FMV scenes that are supposed to communicate some story ideas to you... and they are almost indecipherable. That was for me in 1080p. I'm imagining in 4k they may be truly horrid.
A freshly localized Radical Dreamers and a mostly tasteful remaster of Chrono Cross makes this a pretty sweet package. Cross on an emulator with the 3D downscaling and a good CRT filter is still the best way to "look" at the game, but this remaster is probably the best way to "play" the game. Also, Radical Dreamers wooty. It's a text adventure. That's awesome.