Radiant Historia

Radiant Historia is a great game that displays the true potential of an RPG in every way. Classic 16 bit games have pretty much disappeared by this point, such a sad state for those of use that love the style, but this game fits the mold in every way and builds on the greatness of games such as Final Fantasy III (SNES, Final Fantasy VI in Japan) and quirky classics like Earthbound (SNES). Radiant Historia takes a very serious approach to the storyline and thrusts you into in a very convincing world and its problems. Radiant Historia has a very unique battle system that is a great addition to the turn based battle system and adds great depth and strategy to the game and each individual battle. Being turn based is a turnoff to many, but this new battle system is a great way to keep people intrigued and on the edge of their seat in a tough battle. Each battle has a grid that fits the enemies and player characters on it. Each character has a set of special moves and regular moves that are able to attack certain squares on the grid, the more squares it can target, the more MP (magic points) used, the more deadly it is. This was a great addition to the battle system and made the battles unique and fun. The characters were also unique and very believable, the main character being a soldier looking to end wars and have world peace. Seems to follow many RPG plots, but that is almost unavoidable. Each character has depth as you learn about them throughout the game. Earning about their past is a great experience and explains why each character is the way they are. Now, the greatest part of the game: the game includes time travel to complete! Yes, Chrono Trigger (SNES) did do time travel first, but this game does it different. The story is started with the main character being given a book that can control time travel. Throughout the game, you have to traverse time to find where the conspiracy lies and how it unfolds over time. Each step of the way, it seems someone is always one step ahead of you, but how and why? You must play to find that out and it kept me playing nonstop until I beat it! The touch screen, unfortunately, is not a major focus of the game, but it takes nothing away at all from the game. Even this minor criticism could not alter my score for this fantastic game. If you are an RPG fan, pick this up, you will not be disappointed!

Radiant Historia is by far one of the best JRPGs I have played on Nintendo DS. Before I get into the gory details, because it may not be for everyone, I want to mention that this review will contain no major character or plot spoilers, but I will spoil game mechanics. Why are you reading the reviews in the first place if you can't stand any spoilers? ;) Radiant Historia is set in a steam punk-esque world between warring nations. You are the protagonist, Stocke, a "secret agent" of sorts for one of the nations. The game focuses around the political and social intrigue between these two nations and several others. As you investigate some major and minor problems you do standard JRPG stuff like fighting foes, levelling up, gaining and buying equipment and making decisions of whom to include in your fighting party of three. Gameplay This will be a long section because RH does a lot of things differently from typical JRPGs and this is what really makes this game unique. Radiant Historia is roughly like a cross between a time travel JRPG like Chrono Trigger, a Choose Your Own Adventure book and a tactical RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre. Very early on, Stocke gets the ability to travel between two timelines: a "Standard" history and an "Alternate" history. What happens in one timeline effects the other. Its best to suspend your disbelief about this sort of thing if you're going to enjoy the game. Although the game does a pretty good job of smoothing over logical inconsistencies in this method, you can always be successful with "go do something you missed" in the other timeline when you got stuck. The game forces you to jump timelines to obtain items needed to solve problems or change someone's attitude or life. You can't jump to any precise point. You are limited to "nodes" that are major events for the main character. All of the available nodes are nicely laid out in a timeline map for you that also contains pertinent information about your status on different quests. At critical junctures in the story, the main character must choose between two alternatives to progress the story. There is no penalty for a "wrong" choice as the game immediately gives you the chance to jump back in history to correct your mistake without a game restart. Completists will enjoy finding all of the "bad" endings, of which there are many. I found many of these choices to be logical yet requiring some depth of thought. You really need to consider all the character's motivations to get the story-progressing outcome right away. While some crave finding all the bad endings, I challenged myself to avoid as many bad endings as possible and was quite proud that I got through with only a few out of likely dozens of possible bad endings. The key to success in this game is following the mantra of: "if you get stuck, go to the other timeline." There was only one place in the game "near the beginning" when I wasn't sure what to do and its right in the beginning when you have to do your first transfer between timelines. Many people find themselves asking "why is doing this going to change something in the other timeline? After this first one it makes more sense what you have to do to accomplish tasks (the game makes it very clear too) so my initial frustration at this first one was quickly replaced by an understanding of how the game "works". Combat in the game is on a 9X9 tactical grid and the object is not just your standard JRPG "use your skills to kill each individual enemy as quickly as possible." The grid adds the interesting tactical element of being able to "push" and "pull" your enemies into different spaces. The front line allows you to do more damage, but you take more damage and the back line allows you to avoid damage while you do less. The middle is, well, the middle ground. Most characters have the ability to manipulate enemies on the grid in some way, with Stocke being the best at it. By pushing and pulling enemies around, you can "stack" enemies on a single square of the grid, resulting in any attack doing damage and affecting all enemies on that square. Rarely are battles the same in beginning setup and enemies change frequently. Three additional mechanics make battles fresh. Yes, we're still going. Every battle is governed by a turn order that you can manipulate. If you want to have your three characters go nine times in a row, you can switch with enemies and allow them to go before you to make it happen. There is a down side, of course. When you switch, your character becomes slightly more vulnerable to attack until they act. The purpose of switching turn order is to take advantage of the multiplier system. By alternating magic and physical skills, your characters can chain together a long series of attacks to build the multiplier, increasing the damage done to enemies when you have a large multiplier. Before battles begin, you can press the Y button to swing Stocke's sword at enemy, potentially "stunning" it. If you enter battle while an enemy is "stunned" you get a "surprise" round with three or four total turns to take before your enemy gets to act. I should probably also mention that battles are not random "sprung" encounters. You can choose to enter combat. Many are annoyed by traditional "random" encounter JRPGS and this is not one of them. Characters Extra characters (six of them) enter your party as the story progresses and leave as the story requires them to do so. Each character has a defined personality and there is character development and growth of several of the characters. They are all likeable for different reasons and I personally found myself growing to like all of them. Stocke is particularly likeable as the "reluctant" hero archetype. He is much grittier than a lot of JRPG protagonists and he is much more intelligent than almost all of them. He doesn't say dumb things and this in game thoughts are logical. Skills Combat systems are driven by skill sets and the skill sets in this game are well thought out. Every character gets some sort of "grid manipulation" skill and several characters specialize in them. You also have characters specializing in magic and some in other nuances. You can build some characters in multiple different ways although some characters clearly have strengths that you will want to cater towards. Every character in the game is useful in some way and I was surprised how much utility that I could get out of characters that seemed like they would be ineffective on the surface. You really just need to know how to play their role. Some of the best characters are not damage dealers. Characters gain most of their skills automatically through levelling although each character can also learn four additional skills through side quests. Many (but not all) of these "extra" skills are useful and make the end game much easier. One of things that I like about the skills in this game is that most of the skills that inflict status ailments on enemies are useful and make a big impact. Poison, often the lamest mechanic in most games is very useful in this game. Use it often, especially on bosses. Steal, also a very lame mechanic in most games, is incredibly useful here and can result in getting some unique equipment. The "stacking" nature of the grid can often result in multiple enemies with just a little health left and the Steal skill can be a good finishing move. Just like with damage, your chance to steal increases with increasing multiplier and increases with more enemies on a space. Equipment The economy in the game is pretty loose in that I rarely had any trouble buying anything. Note that I fight nearly every enemy that I encounter and reaped a lot of cash as a result. The challenge of this system isn't so much to have enough cash as it is to remember what time and place has the equipment that you need. Certain equipment is only available in certain times at certain places. Some of the best equipment is found in dungeons or as drops or can be stolen from bosses. Extras The game has about two dozen side quests. This may not sound like a lot to some fans, but since many of these side quests require multiple different jumps back in forth through time to complete it is a lot of extra content. These side quests can also unlock different skills. Doing different sidequests can unlock alternate endings, including a "true" ending which I have not attained yet. Length and Difficulty I am no stranger to tactical or JRPGs and I found the game challenging at first and progressively easier as I went along. It is important not to "fight" the stacking nature of the mechanics to be successful. General JRPG rules like "having the best equipment" and "having enough support items" apply here. I think I was over-levelled throughout most of the game. I took my sweet time and fought every enemy and as a result I experienced little challenge from the final boss. I think if you did a blitz play-through only fighting what was necessary you would find the game much more challenging, especially around a certain chapter. It took me 45 hours to finish the main story and most of the side quests but there is still content I haven't seen. I think that the 45 hours is probably a mid-high estimate of how long it should take the average gamer. I usually take longer than most people, especially with games that interest me. Look and Sound/Music The game has a nice look to it with interesting locations. It has a steam punk aesthetic with technology in a sword and sorcery world. Monsters have no sound effects but weapons and spells do. They are pretty basic. There is no spoken dialogue in the game. The music is very nice although there isn't much (about eight tunes or so) and it is appropriately recycled depending upon the general "mood" and location of the game. There are some times in game where the music suddenly seems to disappear. A minor glitch. Criticisms Dialogue This game has a lot of dialogue. Reading all the dialogue is very important to get an understanding of where you are supposed to be going and what you are supposed to be doing there as the timeline doesn't always tell you. I think this an advantage to the timeline because it forces you to actually pay attention. It can get tedious to listen to dialogue over and over again as you skip through time. The game allows you to press START to skip entire conversations, but sometimes when you change history the conversations change and you miss out on subtle dialogue changes and whether you actually obtained the item you needed. Its a lot to re-read if you don't want to miss out on the clues. Enemy weaknesses Just like many JRPGs, enemies in this game are supposed to have weaknesses to physical and different elemental attacks and spells. The degree to which this matters is pretty weak in this game. What I would say is that there actually seems to be no middle ground. Enemies will tend to be nearly completely immune to certain attack types or vulnerable to certain ones. Almost every enemy in the game seems to be affected by lightning, which kind of cheapens the whole enemy weakness system and makes certain characters more valuable than others, but not by much. Conclusion This is by far one of the best JRPGs I have played and in my top five games I have played on the DS. I do a lot of research before I buy games and I only buy the ones that suit my tastes and get good reviews. So, to put this in my top five means a lot. My only regret is that I finished it. By the time I finished posting this review the game is likely hard to find and has had a price jump so if you are still looking to find it, good luck!

Only comes with the game, no soundtrack

Una joyita que pasó desapercibida con la gran cantidad de títulos para el 3DS, muy recomendable para los fanáticos del RPG.

Die vorhandenen Rezensionen beschreiben das Spiel schon sehr gut deshalb hier nur ein kurzer Appell Radiant Historia eine Chance zu geben und die meiner Meinung nach völlig unberechtigten 1 Sterne Bewertungen zu ignorieren. 1. Ja, das Spiel ist auf englisch aber gut Verständlich. (evtl. Smartphone zum nachschlagen bereithalten) 2. Ja, es gibt Abschnitte wo keine Kämpfe stattfinden und die Handlung voranschreitet. Jedoch sind diese nicht zu lang und lockern den Spielfluss auf.

Le scelte sono il tema principale di questo gioco e sono veramente importanti. Ho visto tanti giochi recenti fare delle scelte il loro cavallo di battaglia, ma questo gioco attualmente gli dà un senso nel finale che avrete. Le scelte sono talmente importanti che, ho potuto notare, che il risultato finale è influenzato a pari modo sia dalla storia principale che dalle quest secondarie. Dà un senso a tutto ciò che si fa, sinceramente non c'è soddifazione più grande in un GDR. La trama è molto interessante perché non fa una divisione netta tra bene o male ma fa capire la vita è piena di sfumature diverse e riesce a rimanere piuttosto realistica nonostante le forti tinte fantasy. Ovviamente bisogna capire l'inglese, ma d'altronde se state leggendo questo sapete già che non c'è altro modo di ottenere questo gioco. Non ci sono molto termini complicati quindi con una buona conoscenza della lingua si può apprezzare a pieno la storia. Il sistema di combattimento è l'altro elemento interessante. E' molto innovativo, usa una griglia senza però sfociare in un sistema strategy come fire emblem, ma riesce comunque ad essere profondo. Insieme ad un sistema di combo che si basa sulla potenza delle mosse ed a ricompense in EXP ed Oro per tali combo, vi invoglierà a provare diversi attacchi eliminando il problema della ripetitività che anche i migliori JRPG hanno. Se siete amanti dei giochi di ruolo in generale, il gioco è ambientato in un mondo piuttosto variegato non ci sono troppi elementi culturali che pendono troppo ad oriente od occidente, non potete farvi sfuggire questo capolavoro. Non sto usando un'esagerazione, fidatevi.

Je ne vais pas m'étendre en explications, ce jeu est tout simplement le meilleur RPG que vous pouvez trouver sur Nintendo DS. Le jeu est relativement beau puisqu'il propose quelques décors très sympathique, le gameplay, que ce soit en combat ou pas, est quasiment sans faille, la soundtrack est belle, l'histoire prenante et les dialogues matures et intelligents ( un des nombreux points forts du jeu selon moi puisqu'ils font que le jeu ne souffre que de quelques petites longueurs ) Radiant Historia vous tiendra occupé de nombreuses heures ( environ 45, de mémoire ). Un excellent RPG à posséder pour les aficionados.