Radia Senki on Famicom: Tecmo’s 1991 “Dawn Chapter” RPG, Its Code TCF-8R, and What It Left to Klonoa

Radia Senki: Reimeihen went on sale in Japan on 15 November 1991 as a Tecmo Famicom cartridge, at 6,900円 before tax, with ラディア戦記 黎明篇 on the label. It is an action role-playing game about a swordsman who wakes in a forest with no memory, and its subtitle, 黎明篇, means “the dawn chapter”.

This is an entry in a series about games that never got a second part. The dawn chapter was the only chapter. We found no sequel, side story or port from Tecmo — but the man who made it carried pieces of it to another company, and they ended up in Klonoa.

• Japanese title: ラディア戦記 黎明篇, published by Tecmo, with Tecmo’s own English name printed on the box: Record of Radia war.
• Famicom cartridge: 15 November 1991 · 6,900円 before tax · “TECMO THEATER VOL.7”
• Catalogue number: TCF-8R, printed on the cartridge label — the Media Arts Database does not record one
• Japan only: “FOR SALE and USE IN JAPAN ONLY” is printed on the box and in the manual
• No second part: no sequel, side story or port. Why it was called the dawn chapter, and whether a sequel was planned, are not on record
• Klonoa: its director says Klonoa’s story grew out of what he left unfinished here, and reused its names. He does not call it a sequel
• Buying it: search TCF-8R at Suruga-ya. An English cartridge, or one shaped for the NES, is a fan-made reproduction

What is Radia Senki, and how does it play?

The back of the box sets it up in a few lines. A swordsman comes to in a dark forest and cannot remember who he is. The hero forms a party of up to five and travels a fantasy land looking for his lost memory, with a battle system the box describes as using AI and a “cinematic display” meant to heighten the drama. The box’s headline is すべてはこの時、この場所から始まった — “it all began at this time, in this place”.

The memory loss is not just a premise. Hideo Yoshizawa, who made the game, wrote in 2017 that the name-entry screen tells you “one name came to mind”, so the player types whatever name occurs to them, and the story then does something with that name near the end. We will leave the rest for you to find.

The cartridge carries two more labels worth knowing. The spine and the manual call it TECMO THEATER VOL.7, and the box and the manual give Tecmo’s English name for the game: Record of Radia war. — lower-case “war”, full stop included.

Was Radia Senki ever released outside Japan?

No. The back of the box and the manual both carry the printed line “FOR SALE and USE IN JAPAN ONLY”, with 本品の輸出、使用営業及び賃貸を禁じます (“export, commercial use and rental of this product are prohibited”).

An English version seems to have come close. Hardcore Gaming 101 writes that an English release was advertised under the name The Tower of Radia but never came out. We have not seen that advertisement, and Hardcore Gaming 101 is the only source we found for it; English Wikipedia repeats it, citing that article. What collectors do know is that a prototype cartridge called The Tower of Radia exists, and that its contents were dumped and circulated by 2008, according to collector forums and the fan archive Hidden Palace.

Which release is the Japanese cartridge, and what is its code?

The Media Arts Database has the cartridge as row M878441: ラディア戦記 黎明篇, Famicom, published 1991-11-15 by テクモ, 6900円 (税抜). It does not have a catalogue number.

Two other places do. The NES Cart Database lists the cartridge with the catalogue ID TCF-8R, and Suruga-ya, which indexes catalogue numbers as a field, returns this game and nothing else for TCF-8R. The code on the Japanese cartridge is TCF-8R. On the cartridge itself it is printed in the top-right corner of the front label, next to the TECMO logo, and again in the bottom-right corner of the manual’s cover. We checked both on the NES Cart Database’s scans and on a seller’s photos.

The list price is 6,900円 before tax. That is the Media Arts Database figure, and Suruga-ya shows 定価：￥7,590, which is that price with today’s 10% consumption tax added: 6,900 × 1.1 = 7,590.

Why was it called “Reimeihen”, and was a sequel planned?

We do not know, and we looked. We found no statement from Hideo Yoshizawa or from Tecmo explaining the subtitle or saying that a second chapter was planned. The manual, which is Tecmo’s own text, calls the game only “one chapter” — 一篇 — of the player’s adventure in a forgotten dream world.

You will often read that a sequel was planned and cancelled because the game did not sell. That comes from two Japanese wikis, the pixiv encyclopedia and ゲームカタログ@Wiki, and neither cites a source. Treat it as a guess drawn from the subtitle.

What Yoshizawa has said is about how it sold. Writing in 2017, he recalled that by the time it came out the Super Famicom was taking over, and that although Tecmo billed it as the Famicom’s last big title, only 30,000 copies were ordered. It was the last game he made at Tecmo; he calls it a poor, beloved child of a game. He also explains the main title: it was first announced in Famitsu as シャトー・ドゥ・ファントーム (“Château de Fantôme”), until Tecmo’s president ordered a title with kanji in it. He does not say where the subtitle came from.

Nor has the game come back in any form. We found no port, compilation or download: it is not among Project EGG’s Famicom titles, and it does not appear in Wikipedia’s lists of Virtual Console, Nintendo Switch Online or Classic Mini games, which do include other Tecmo titles. Treat that as “none found”, not as proof.

What does Radia Senki have to do with Klonoa?

This is the part of the game’s story that did continue — though not as a sequel. Yoshizawa moved from Tecmo to Namco in 1992, according to Japanese Wikipedia, and directed Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, a platform game Namco released on the PlayStation in 1997. In a series of posts about making Klonoa, written on X in 2017 and collected on Togetter, he explains what Radia Senki gave it:

• The story idea: Klonoa’s story, he writes, grew out of something he had left unfinished in Radia Senki, “which I made at Tecmo”
• The names: at the scenario stage he used many of Radia Senki’s character names as placeholders, and several survived into the finished game. Klonoa’s companion Huepow is named after a forest spirit in Radia Senki; the songstress Lephise after a princess who, in both games, flees by airship and crashes; Balue after a bandit chief; the villain Ghadius after Radia Senki’s Gadiss. Klonoa 2’s Leorina takes the name of Radia Senki’s water priestess
• The place: “Phantomile”, Klonoa’s world, goes back to Radia Senki’s original working title, シャトー・ドゥ・ファントーム

What he does not do is call Klonoa a sequel, and it is not one. It was made by a different company, in a different genre, on a different console. What came across, by his own account, was one person’s unfinished idea and a set of names — not Radia Senki’s world or its hero. Some fans do call it the sequel; that is a fan reading, not what its director said. Radia Senki itself stayed a single chapter.

If you want the Japanese Klonoa as well, Kataban has it under its Japanese title, 風のクロノア door to phantomile: the 1997 PlayStation original, a 1999 PlayStation re-release and the 2008 Wii version. Look up 風のクロノア door to phantomile on Kataban →

Who made Radia Senki?

Yoshizawa says in his own posts that he made it, and that it was his last game at Tecmo. The manual’s credits do not use his name: the director and scenario credit reads SYUICHI SAKURAZAKI. That this is Yoshizawa under another name rests on MobyGames, which transcribes the credits as “Hideo Yoshizawa (S Sakurazaki)”, and on English Wikipedia’s article on Yoshizawa, which says he worked at Tecmo under the name “Sakurazaki”. We did not find him saying so himself. He does name one other contributor: the manual’s illustrations, he writes, are by Makoto Karibe, then in Tecmo’s design department.

How do you tell an original cartridge from a reproduction?

The game has an English fan translation, and that translation is sold on cartridges. Romhacking.net, a fan-run database, lists two: an unfinished “Beta One” by Dayeight from 1 September 1997, and a complete version 1.00 by dreamless, Jair and [cx], released on 11 September 1999 under the title Chronicle of the Radia War. Reproduction cartridges of it are offered by fan shops — OCD Reproductions lists Chronicle of the Radia War for the NES at $39.99, and Retro Shopping Cart lists a Japanese-to-English translation cartridge at $40 — and a 2008 collector forum thread describes one being mistaken for a prototype. These are shop listings and fan sources.

As far as any source we found records, Tecmo released Radia Senki only as a Japanese Famicom cartridge. Any Radia Senki cartridge whose game text is in English, or that is shaped for the NES, is a reproduction. Do not go by Latin letters on the label: the original’s front label carries TECMO and TCF-8R in Latin letters too.

• The game text: the original’s messages and dialogue are in Japanese. English dialogue means the fan translation
• The shape: a Famicom cartridge has 60 pins and does not fit a North American or European NES without an adapter. A cartridge that slots straight into an NES is not the 1991 release
• The title on the label: Chronicle of the Radia War is the fan translation’s title. The Tower of Radia is the name of the unreleased prototype, which was never sold in shops
• The listing words: sellers of reproductions usually say so — “repro”, “reproduction”, “English translation”. On 25 September 2026 our eBay searches found none, but the shops above show they exist

To find the code on an original, look at the front label: TCF-8R is printed in its top-right corner, next to the red TECMO logo.

If you are buying in person in Japan, you can show this line to the staff: これは1991年のオリジナル版ですか？ — “Is this the original 1991 version?”

How do you search each shop for it?

Suruga-ya: the code, in the game category. TCF-8R showed results: 2 in the default view and 6 with sold-out items shown, all of them this cartridge; TCF8R without the hyphen showed 2 and 6. With sold-out shown, the Japanese title showed 8 with 黎明篇 and 8 without it, also all this game — the title searches also include the box and the manual sold on their own. Across the whole store the title also picks up 1991 game magazines and a fan-made music CD, so keep the game category on. Radia Senki in Latin letters returns nothing.

Buyee: the full title. ラディア戦記 黎明篇 showed results: 11 (cartridges: 10; manual on its own: 1), all of them this game. It is a small number because sellers often drop the subtitle or write it as 黎明編; if you want more listings, search ラディア戦記 alone, which showed results: 26 (cartridges: 22; manual on its own: 1; 1991 magazines: 3). The code is not reliable on Buyee: TCF-8R showed results: 4, all of them this game, but TCF8R showed 140, and what we could read of them was mostly toilet fittings, engine and motorcycle parts and golf clubs (see the sources).

eBay: the English romanisation. Radia Senki showed exact matches: 5 (this cartridge: 4; a Tecmo ruler: 1). Adding famicom makes it worse, not better — exact matches: 7 (this cartridge: 4; other games with “Senki” in the name, such as Mōryō Senki Madara: 3). The Japanese title returns nothing useful, because eBay turns it into “war chronicles”, and Tecmo’s Record of Radia War returns nothing at all.

Why search Kataban for this one?

Because the game has no official English title, and each shop wants something different. Kataban puts the code and the Japanese title side by side. Search TCF-8R, Record of Radia War or Radia Senki and you get this cartridge. In second-hand game shops in Japan, such as Book-Off, Famicom games are often shelved in Japanese syllabary order, so the section to look in is ラ.

Radia Senki: Reimeihen · ラディア戦記 黎明篇 · Famicom, 15 November 1991 (TCF-8R) · Tecmo

Where to buy: Suruga-ya.jp — the code (TCF-8R) · Buyee — the full title (ラディア戦記 黎明篇) · eBay — Radia Senki
See it on Kataban →

On 25 September 2026 Suruga-ya’s main entry for the cartridge was listed at ￥5,300 to ￥14,400 across conditions, with a one-day sale taking a little off that, and a cartridge-only copy was in stock at ￥9,980. The cheapest price in a range is not necessarily the best copy; read the condition of each one.

A dawn chapter with no day after it. Radia Senki drew 30,000 orders, went unreleased abroad, and was never continued at Tecmo. Its maker took the unfinished part with him, and it turned into something else. If you want the one from 1991, look for TCF-8R in the top-right corner of the label, and leave the English NES cartridges for what they are.