The "Side Story" in the title already implies that this isn't an ordinary entry in the series, but the extend to which it did away with everything the popular series was known for came as quite a shock for its fans. In place of the standard medieval fantasy world now stood a semi-science fiction / cyberpunk setting a la Final Fantasy 7. But not only did the scenario have nothing to do with the former games, the genre was also dropped in favor of a turn-based SRPG, to try and mimick the success of Softmax' The War of Genesis series, which HiCom was also publishing at the time.