What are some series you wish you had played or could have played in release order?
I started thinking about this again as I’m enjoying the Chrono Cross remaster. As part of the remaster, we finally got an official version of the Radical Dreamers visual novel in the West. This was my first time playing it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Without going into details, it is the missing bridge from Chrono Trigger to Chrono Cross. I grew up loving Chrono Trigger and it remains one of my all time favorite games. Chrono Cross is my favorite PS1 game of all time, but if you are familiar with the game it has always been contentious about whether it was a good sequel to Chrono Trigger or not. I love the places the story goes and as I’m currently enjoying replaying it for the first time in fifteen or so years, I’m really appreciating a lot of what it sets out to do and how it is connected to Chrono Trigger even more.
I really wonder though how I’d feel differently about Chrono Cross, both positively and negatively, had I played Radical Dreamers between Trigger and Cross as it released in Japan. Certain things would be less shocking for sure and would be less contentious since Radical Dreamers actually established certain ideas first. Someone who played Radical Dreamers would have knowledge and expectations about characters and events in Cross that would be affirmed and subverted differently from someone who hasn’t. I’ll throw all of the big ones behind a spoiler tag below here that assumes you’ve played both games:
So pulling back more generally, there’s a lot of series I wish I could have played in release order like Trails (The English release order including the fan translations of 1, 2, 6, 7, 3, 8, 4, 9, 5 is clearly not ideal for 50-100+ hour adventures!) to ones I could have played in order if I had followed the series from the start like Yakuza (I started with 0 then played 1, 6, 2, 3, 4, 7, 5, Dead Souls). For Trails, I obviously missed out on all the character and plot callbacks which made certain events lose impact, for Yakuza I mainly just wish I had the Dragon of Dojima in my life earlier and I could watch the series evolve properly. Also Majima’s character probably would have made more sense if I didn’t start with Zero.
I’m curious, what series do you wish you had or could have played in release order? What do you feel you’ve missed out on by playing out of order? Use spoiler tags if you need to!
I started thinking about this again as I’m enjoying the Chrono Cross remaster. As part of the remaster, we finally got an official version of the Radical Dreamers visual novel in the West. This was my first time playing it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Without going into details, it is the missing bridge from Chrono Trigger to Chrono Cross. I grew up loving Chrono Trigger and it remains one of my all time favorite games. Chrono Cross is my favorite PS1 game of all time, but if you are familiar with the game it has always been contentious about whether it was a good sequel to Chrono Trigger or not. I love the places the story goes and as I’m currently enjoying replaying it for the first time in fifteen or so years, I’m really appreciating a lot of what it sets out to do and how it is connected to Chrono Trigger even more.
I really wonder though how I’d feel differently about Chrono Cross, both positively and negatively, had I played Radical Dreamers between Trigger and Cross as it released in Japan. Certain things would be less shocking for sure and would be less contentious since Radical Dreamers actually established certain ideas first. Someone who played Radical Dreamers would have knowledge and expectations about characters and events in Cross that would be affirmed and subverted differently from someone who hasn’t. I’ll throw all of the big ones behind a spoiler tag below here that assumes you’ve played both games:
The most infamous of course is definitely Lucca gets murdered off screen in Radical Dreamers. Killing off the Chrono Trigger cast has always been one of the biggest sticking points for Chrono Cross, but it actually already happened years earlier!
There’s more where that came from too as you learn Schala’s soul is inside Kid which is one of the major endgame revelations of Chrono Cross. It also continues Magus’ journey post Chrono Trigger which is super cool and makes you wonder more about Guile walking in. Kid’s character and motivations would already be known to Radical Dreamers players as well. When you hear the name, The Radical Dreamers, named dropped right in the first town, you’ll know who they are.
Smaller things include setting up expectations for the Viper Manor infiltration, establishing Lynx as a villain, and establishing Radius and Riddel as characters (though Riddel is very different in RD. It even introduces the sister sword to the Masamune and mentions the Masamune was corrupted.
It’s wild how much the three hour journey of Radical Dreamers sets up for Chrono Cross!
There’s more where that came from too as you learn Schala’s soul is inside Kid which is one of the major endgame revelations of Chrono Cross. It also continues Magus’ journey post Chrono Trigger which is super cool and makes you wonder more about Guile walking in. Kid’s character and motivations would already be known to Radical Dreamers players as well. When you hear the name, The Radical Dreamers, named dropped right in the first town, you’ll know who they are.
Smaller things include setting up expectations for the Viper Manor infiltration, establishing Lynx as a villain, and establishing Radius and Riddel as characters (though Riddel is very different in RD. It even introduces the sister sword to the Masamune and mentions the Masamune was corrupted.
It’s wild how much the three hour journey of Radical Dreamers sets up for Chrono Cross!
So pulling back more generally, there’s a lot of series I wish I could have played in release order like Trails (The English release order including the fan translations of 1, 2, 6, 7, 3, 8, 4, 9, 5 is clearly not ideal for 50-100+ hour adventures!) to ones I could have played in order if I had followed the series from the start like Yakuza (I started with 0 then played 1, 6, 2, 3, 4, 7, 5, Dead Souls). For Trails, I obviously missed out on all the character and plot callbacks which made certain events lose impact, for Yakuza I mainly just wish I had the Dragon of Dojima in my life earlier and I could watch the series evolve properly. Also Majima’s character probably would have made more sense if I didn’t start with Zero.
I’m curious, what series do you wish you had or could have played in release order? What do you feel you’ve missed out on by playing out of order? Use spoiler tags if you need to!
