The Satellaview add-on for the Super Famicom has long been a notorious device, one of the first examples of Internet enabled gaming that never left Japan. Emulating the Satellaview isn’t difficult with modern technology, although it can be somewhat tedious since it requires using an alternate bios, causing even most of its brand name titles to be overlooked. So of course, a strange little project like Dynami Tracer never had a chance. Nevertheless, we’re coming up on the two year anniversary of Krokodyl’s translation patch for Dynami Tracer. While Krokodyl made the somewhat questionable decision to require the Satellaview bios to play this patch (as opposed to it just turning Dynami Tracer into a normal ROM file), the game itself is quite playable. I was even able to get it to work without the bios by using a SNES9x injector protocol on my 3DS.
What is Dynami Tracer? Well, the game is a space race. A cast of six colorful characters dash among planets attempting to collect artifacts for as many points as possible, although choosing to get to the finish line as quickly as possible also earns points not to be underestimated. Dynami Tracer is an appropriate experiment for the Satellaview, as time limit notwithstanding, there’s very little proper gameplay. You run around various planets in an engine built off of Chrono Trigger without the combat looking for treasure, with the only clues as to what you’re doing being entirely verbal. While you certainly can fumble your way through the dialogue prompts and get points anyway, this isn’t as satisfying as trying to puzzle out the quirky writing and guess the right solutions.
While Dynami Tracer has save files it doesn’t really need them, aside from the one planet where you’re clearly warned in advance that you might die, and where you probably will die many times trying to figure out its puzzles. The Satellaview context of Dynami Tracer needs respecting in order to parse the game’s curious design. Broadcast two hours per day for two months in Japan, Dynami Tracer is one of the last high score games. Online players competed for the best overall total in the race, only having the memories of prior attempts as their guide for how they could top the leaderboard.
Despite Dynami Tracer being forward thinking just by even having an online leaderboard at all, its awkward assumption that point totals, rather than the fastest possible time, are how gamers gauge success leaves it with one foot firmly in the twentieth century. Which is a bit of a shame, given that Dynami Tracer has a fairly groovy sci-fi vibe somewhere between Space Cobra and Cowboy Bebop. I’m not surprised that Squaresoft was able to enlist Nobuo Uematsu for the soundtrack. Having read extensively about the famed composer in the Final Fantasy VI Boss Fight book, it’s easy to imagine him jumping at any excuse to get back to his sixteen-bit orchestra one last time.
There’s not much to replay in this game for the modern day, though. Each of the six characters has a distinct ending, and it’ll probably take you a few tries to figure out the optimal path to guarantee a win. I’m loathe to even hint at what that might be, though, since so much of the fun in Dynami Tracer is figuring out what that might be for yourself. A big part of what makes old games so nostalgic is that back then, we never had any idea what to expect. Given that you can, and probably should, be trying to finish Dynami Tracer in under an hour per playthrough, the game’s also a very minor time commitment, and a worthwhile glimpse into an era where online gaming meant something very different than it does today.
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