Post by TheBlackStones on Jun 5, 2011 9:00:40 GMT -5
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Radiant Historia is a Japanese RPG released by Atlus for the DS. The concept of the game revolves around time travel and of course any RPG that is going to go this route is going to be immediately held up to scrutiny to see if it will hold a candle to beloved time travelling RPG Chrono Trigger. Does Radiant Historia drop the ball? Does it simply meet expectations, or does it go beyond? Read on find out what I think!
The Story/Plot
Radiant Historia takes place in a world that is being overrun with the problem of "Desertification". That a huge desert is slowly but surely expanding and is threatening to make the world completely uninhabitable. Two nations, the nation of Alistel, and the nation of Granorg have now come to war because of the need for habitable land that they need to maintain their countries. On top of that, something called the Sand Plague is affecting people and Alistel blames Granorg's ruler, so the people of Alistel also believe that they are fighting somewhat of a holy war. In the game you will take on the role of Stocke, a soldier of the Alistel army who will be tasked with an important mission.
The Story to the game is very simple and straightforward. But make no mistake that they make very effective use of it and weave it into something incredibly interesting and intriguing. While there are times that you might not have seen things coming, there are other times where you probably have guessed the plot in advance. But the strength of the story is that even when you know the plot twists are coming, it's told in such effective ways that they aren't boring or seem contrived, but still very fascinating to go through. Radiant Historia has many twists and turns to it that while they may not always be original, the execution of them makes for something incredibly exciting.
The Characters
Radiant Historia definitely thrives on the fact that it has an incredible cast of characters that are well Written, and never come of as cliche or terrible. Stocke, the main character seems to deviate from the typical JRPG character trope. Stocke isn't a person that has huge mental anguish which causes him to be rude all the time, he's not some goofball, he doesn't get all embarrassed around girls either. The game makes Stocke out to be a strong person, that while he's not huge on chatting he does value his comrades and friends. He thinks about every single action he should take and puts what's best before everything else. Stocke is a refreshing lead character in a genre that is simply content to stick to the status-quot.
However, Stocke is also surrounded by an excellent supporting cast that doesn't feel tired at all. There's Marco and Raynie who become close allies that while they don't have the skills that Stocke does, they support him and give him the support he needs. Rosche is Stocke's best friend and is also in the military and does whatever it takes to protect his men. Then there's even Aht who while being the token "child" character that most games feel to include. She becomes very important to the plot in interesting ways and as such, I never felt her as annoying but intriguing because she was actually able to contribute overall to things.
Radiant Historia's plot is bolstered by it's incredible cast of characters that never feel tired or the same. But each with a unique personality and all of which contribute to the plot. Which is the best thing you can ask for from a game.
The Music
Absolutely incredible. From upbeat music, to the incredibly haunting sad melodies. Radiant Historia's soundtrack just comes alive and really pops with you. The music is able to always incredibly convey the tone that the game is looking for and that's what you need a soundtrack to do. Yoko Shimomura definitely deserves every amount of praise for this and it makes me excited to hear more work from her which hopefully delivers on this level which is hopefully soon if Xenoblade is around the corner. Simply amazing and definitely worth tracking down the soundtrack for.
The Graphics
Radiant Historia won't look as good as some PSP games and some DS games probably have it beat. Radiant Historia is a game that proves that graphics itself aren't the end all that will make a game look good. But many varied things have to contribute. Radiant Historia boasts a beautiful art-style that are extremely good to look at in the game whenever you see the character portraits. The environments are fantastic looking, when you're in the desert, things will look somewhat drab and of course a lot of brown but still be bright. When you head into the jungle everything will jump out at you and it just makes you appreciate that while the graphics themselves aren't much themselves. The aesthetic of everything comes together so well it makes it great to look at. Radiant Historia does a fine job with the graphics themselves, but everything else makes it truly shine.
The Gameplay/Combat System
Here's the good stuff!
Radiant Historia takes place along 2 different story paths that will arise out of a choice that you make early in the game. From there, you go along the story paths advancing that paths particular story and get quests. However, along these paths you will have points in time in the story that you can return too. So when you're stuck on part in story line, you can then switch over and choose the other path. But that's not all, you can go backwards in time as well to any of those time points. So for example, at one point in the story you find out that a NPC wanted someone to meet them but at the point of time you are in the game that person is no longer anywhere you can find them. You can now travel back in time to where they should have last been talk to them and convince them to meet up with the particular person and when you go back to the present time, they have joined and you'll get a reward!
Radiant Historia isn't like Chrono Trigger where you're travelling between different era's in time. But rather you're travelling between story events so you can always jump backwards and do certain events over again to do various quests and affect even the main story if the case calls for it. The story also gives you plenty of chances to decide what to do. There's always a wrong choice which will "end" the game and it's interesting to see what will end it or not and what decisions are the right thing to do because it's not always clear. However when the game ends this way, you're always transported right back to before you made the choice so there's no harm in making mistakes there.
Also, there's not really a world map to speak of. You simply travel between points on the map. And more often than not you're locked into a very specific path. This is pretty important because you have to think whenever you get a quest that at what point were you allowed to specifically go to a certain area and what you could do there. So you'll constantly find yourself jumping between all sorts of periods of the story so that you can do side-quests. There's definitely lots of times where you'll have to go to the same point multiple times. Now this might be disheartening because you might say "But what about the story that I'll constantly have to sit through?" Luckily Atlus thought ahead and made it that any dialogue can be skipped by a simple press of the start button. It comes in handy an incredibly lot of times so don't forget about it. Now a major thing about the time travel as well, is that since you're going back to different parts in the story, you're party will always change. Characters that you have now won't travel back with you. So if you travel back to a point where you only had Marco and Raynie in your party, that's who you'll only get to play as.
Well, hopefully I covered enough about the time travel and the general gameplay works around it. So lets get to the other meat of the game. The battle system!
Radiant Historia boasts a very unique and fast paced battle system which makes fighting incredibly fun. Combat works likes this. Your characters are set in order at the right hand of the screen and they don't move or anything. But the monsters will be placed on a 3x3 grid and placed randomly on it. All you have to do is defeat them all. But the emphasis is on how efficiently you can do this. Because the monsters can be moved around. A lot of your characters will have attacks that will hit left, right, pull forward or back. So if there's a character in the top right and then someone behind him. You hit the character with a push back attack that will knock him into the other monster. Once this is accomplished any attacks that will damage that monster will now damage the other monster as well. There's also no limit to how many monsters can share the same square as well. So you can have 4-5 characters sharing the same square and beat them all up at the same time. This only lasts until your turns end and then the monsters will break off into different squares again.
So I should probably get into that. The turn order. If anybody remembers my Heroes of Legend review or played the game. The turn order works the same way. You'll have a list on the top DS screen at the left hand side. This will show your characters turns and all the monsters turns to a certain point as well. However, while in Legend of Heroes you couldn't change the order unless you killed something or used a spell. Radiant Historia will let you alter the order as much as you want to get how many turns in a row you want. The downside of course to when you do this is that you give monsters more turns to attack before you can, and at the same time when you do a change in the turn order. The character that initiated the change will now take more damage until they attack again.
So the whole point of the turn order is to make sure that you can get an order that will allow you for maximum damage and kill as many enemies as you can, while not making yourself so open to attacks that you're going to get your whole party killed. It may sound somewhat complicated. But after putting a few hours into the game, you'll see how simply executed it is and how easy it is to pick up.
In addition to general attack and moving. You've got magic spells and abilities. Various magic and abilities can attack multiple squares, and in some cases with a character, you can even lay traps, so that anybody you move into a square will take damage from that trap. HP and MP increase from simply gaining levels and you'll get skills this way too. However, there are various side-quests in the game where you will have to find items to get more skills for characters.
Finally there's the mana burst attacks you can do and you'll get 3 stages to them. First off you get Mana break, which will destroy an enemies turn. Then the next 2 levels will give characters some form of attack or defensive special to use. To get your mana gauge to full, you simply have to keep attacking and getting hit. The more and higher combo's you can do the more the gauge will fill up.
As far as experience works in the game. Any character not in battle will receive a reduced amount. However, the one problem is that if they're not in your party due to being at a different point in time. They'll get no experience at all. This lead to a situation where I had characters close to their 50's in levels but another stuck at 37. That's the only problem I'd have with the battle system but it's pretty minor because any character who falls behind will receive more exp to get them caught up faster.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Radiant Historia is incredible RPG and definitely should be included in the list of DS games that you must play. There's no doubt in my mind that Radiant Historia is a game that will go down as a classic even if it won't get as much exposure as the classics that were released in the Super Nintendo days got. An incredibly story, music, and style to it just can't be denied. If you're one of the ones who ask "What happened to JRPG's these days? They don't make em like they used too!" You owe it to yourself to pick up this game and see that they've still got it.
As for the question posed at the beginning of this. Does Radiant Historia hold up to the lofty goals that Chrono Trigger put up for time travelling RPGs? In my mind. It did, it blew past them and it's a game that's able to sit side by side with it. While the game isn't 100% perfect and there would be 1-2 small things I would have liked improved. In the end, they're small things that I think don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It shouldn't be surprising to you all at this point. But Radiant Historia gets top honours here for simply being an incredible package all around.
Radiant Historia gets a 5/5
Radiant Historia is a Japanese RPG released by Atlus for the DS. The concept of the game revolves around time travel and of course any RPG that is going to go this route is going to be immediately held up to scrutiny to see if it will hold a candle to beloved time travelling RPG Chrono Trigger. Does Radiant Historia drop the ball? Does it simply meet expectations, or does it go beyond? Read on find out what I think!
The Story/Plot
Radiant Historia takes place in a world that is being overrun with the problem of "Desertification". That a huge desert is slowly but surely expanding and is threatening to make the world completely uninhabitable. Two nations, the nation of Alistel, and the nation of Granorg have now come to war because of the need for habitable land that they need to maintain their countries. On top of that, something called the Sand Plague is affecting people and Alistel blames Granorg's ruler, so the people of Alistel also believe that they are fighting somewhat of a holy war. In the game you will take on the role of Stocke, a soldier of the Alistel army who will be tasked with an important mission.
The Story to the game is very simple and straightforward. But make no mistake that they make very effective use of it and weave it into something incredibly interesting and intriguing. While there are times that you might not have seen things coming, there are other times where you probably have guessed the plot in advance. But the strength of the story is that even when you know the plot twists are coming, it's told in such effective ways that they aren't boring or seem contrived, but still very fascinating to go through. Radiant Historia has many twists and turns to it that while they may not always be original, the execution of them makes for something incredibly exciting.
The Characters
Radiant Historia definitely thrives on the fact that it has an incredible cast of characters that are well Written, and never come of as cliche or terrible. Stocke, the main character seems to deviate from the typical JRPG character trope. Stocke isn't a person that has huge mental anguish which causes him to be rude all the time, he's not some goofball, he doesn't get all embarrassed around girls either. The game makes Stocke out to be a strong person, that while he's not huge on chatting he does value his comrades and friends. He thinks about every single action he should take and puts what's best before everything else. Stocke is a refreshing lead character in a genre that is simply content to stick to the status-quot.
However, Stocke is also surrounded by an excellent supporting cast that doesn't feel tired at all. There's Marco and Raynie who become close allies that while they don't have the skills that Stocke does, they support him and give him the support he needs. Rosche is Stocke's best friend and is also in the military and does whatever it takes to protect his men. Then there's even Aht who while being the token "child" character that most games feel to include. She becomes very important to the plot in interesting ways and as such, I never felt her as annoying but intriguing because she was actually able to contribute overall to things.
Radiant Historia's plot is bolstered by it's incredible cast of characters that never feel tired or the same. But each with a unique personality and all of which contribute to the plot. Which is the best thing you can ask for from a game.
The Music
Absolutely incredible. From upbeat music, to the incredibly haunting sad melodies. Radiant Historia's soundtrack just comes alive and really pops with you. The music is able to always incredibly convey the tone that the game is looking for and that's what you need a soundtrack to do. Yoko Shimomura definitely deserves every amount of praise for this and it makes me excited to hear more work from her which hopefully delivers on this level which is hopefully soon if Xenoblade is around the corner. Simply amazing and definitely worth tracking down the soundtrack for.
The Graphics
Radiant Historia won't look as good as some PSP games and some DS games probably have it beat. Radiant Historia is a game that proves that graphics itself aren't the end all that will make a game look good. But many varied things have to contribute. Radiant Historia boasts a beautiful art-style that are extremely good to look at in the game whenever you see the character portraits. The environments are fantastic looking, when you're in the desert, things will look somewhat drab and of course a lot of brown but still be bright. When you head into the jungle everything will jump out at you and it just makes you appreciate that while the graphics themselves aren't much themselves. The aesthetic of everything comes together so well it makes it great to look at. Radiant Historia does a fine job with the graphics themselves, but everything else makes it truly shine.
The Gameplay/Combat System
Here's the good stuff!
Radiant Historia takes place along 2 different story paths that will arise out of a choice that you make early in the game. From there, you go along the story paths advancing that paths particular story and get quests. However, along these paths you will have points in time in the story that you can return too. So when you're stuck on part in story line, you can then switch over and choose the other path. But that's not all, you can go backwards in time as well to any of those time points. So for example, at one point in the story you find out that a NPC wanted someone to meet them but at the point of time you are in the game that person is no longer anywhere you can find them. You can now travel back in time to where they should have last been talk to them and convince them to meet up with the particular person and when you go back to the present time, they have joined and you'll get a reward!
Radiant Historia isn't like Chrono Trigger where you're travelling between different era's in time. But rather you're travelling between story events so you can always jump backwards and do certain events over again to do various quests and affect even the main story if the case calls for it. The story also gives you plenty of chances to decide what to do. There's always a wrong choice which will "end" the game and it's interesting to see what will end it or not and what decisions are the right thing to do because it's not always clear. However when the game ends this way, you're always transported right back to before you made the choice so there's no harm in making mistakes there.
Also, there's not really a world map to speak of. You simply travel between points on the map. And more often than not you're locked into a very specific path. This is pretty important because you have to think whenever you get a quest that at what point were you allowed to specifically go to a certain area and what you could do there. So you'll constantly find yourself jumping between all sorts of periods of the story so that you can do side-quests. There's definitely lots of times where you'll have to go to the same point multiple times. Now this might be disheartening because you might say "But what about the story that I'll constantly have to sit through?" Luckily Atlus thought ahead and made it that any dialogue can be skipped by a simple press of the start button. It comes in handy an incredibly lot of times so don't forget about it. Now a major thing about the time travel as well, is that since you're going back to different parts in the story, you're party will always change. Characters that you have now won't travel back with you. So if you travel back to a point where you only had Marco and Raynie in your party, that's who you'll only get to play as.
Well, hopefully I covered enough about the time travel and the general gameplay works around it. So lets get to the other meat of the game. The battle system!
Radiant Historia boasts a very unique and fast paced battle system which makes fighting incredibly fun. Combat works likes this. Your characters are set in order at the right hand of the screen and they don't move or anything. But the monsters will be placed on a 3x3 grid and placed randomly on it. All you have to do is defeat them all. But the emphasis is on how efficiently you can do this. Because the monsters can be moved around. A lot of your characters will have attacks that will hit left, right, pull forward or back. So if there's a character in the top right and then someone behind him. You hit the character with a push back attack that will knock him into the other monster. Once this is accomplished any attacks that will damage that monster will now damage the other monster as well. There's also no limit to how many monsters can share the same square as well. So you can have 4-5 characters sharing the same square and beat them all up at the same time. This only lasts until your turns end and then the monsters will break off into different squares again.
So I should probably get into that. The turn order. If anybody remembers my Heroes of Legend review or played the game. The turn order works the same way. You'll have a list on the top DS screen at the left hand side. This will show your characters turns and all the monsters turns to a certain point as well. However, while in Legend of Heroes you couldn't change the order unless you killed something or used a spell. Radiant Historia will let you alter the order as much as you want to get how many turns in a row you want. The downside of course to when you do this is that you give monsters more turns to attack before you can, and at the same time when you do a change in the turn order. The character that initiated the change will now take more damage until they attack again.
So the whole point of the turn order is to make sure that you can get an order that will allow you for maximum damage and kill as many enemies as you can, while not making yourself so open to attacks that you're going to get your whole party killed. It may sound somewhat complicated. But after putting a few hours into the game, you'll see how simply executed it is and how easy it is to pick up.
In addition to general attack and moving. You've got magic spells and abilities. Various magic and abilities can attack multiple squares, and in some cases with a character, you can even lay traps, so that anybody you move into a square will take damage from that trap. HP and MP increase from simply gaining levels and you'll get skills this way too. However, there are various side-quests in the game where you will have to find items to get more skills for characters.
Finally there's the mana burst attacks you can do and you'll get 3 stages to them. First off you get Mana break, which will destroy an enemies turn. Then the next 2 levels will give characters some form of attack or defensive special to use. To get your mana gauge to full, you simply have to keep attacking and getting hit. The more and higher combo's you can do the more the gauge will fill up.
As far as experience works in the game. Any character not in battle will receive a reduced amount. However, the one problem is that if they're not in your party due to being at a different point in time. They'll get no experience at all. This lead to a situation where I had characters close to their 50's in levels but another stuck at 37. That's the only problem I'd have with the battle system but it's pretty minor because any character who falls behind will receive more exp to get them caught up faster.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Radiant Historia is incredible RPG and definitely should be included in the list of DS games that you must play. There's no doubt in my mind that Radiant Historia is a game that will go down as a classic even if it won't get as much exposure as the classics that were released in the Super Nintendo days got. An incredibly story, music, and style to it just can't be denied. If you're one of the ones who ask "What happened to JRPG's these days? They don't make em like they used too!" You owe it to yourself to pick up this game and see that they've still got it.
As for the question posed at the beginning of this. Does Radiant Historia hold up to the lofty goals that Chrono Trigger put up for time travelling RPGs? In my mind. It did, it blew past them and it's a game that's able to sit side by side with it. While the game isn't 100% perfect and there would be 1-2 small things I would have liked improved. In the end, they're small things that I think don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It shouldn't be surprising to you all at this point. But Radiant Historia gets top honours here for simply being an incredible package all around.
Radiant Historia gets a 5/5
