For gamers who have been waiting for Square Enix to release a fresh new role-playing game instead of another Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest installment, your prayers have been answered. While Radiata Stories follows the traditional swords-and-magic-style role-playing game, it comes with its own atmosphere, which combines a serious story with humorous moments. The game also takes a big step away from the recent trend toward realistic-looking graphics. As a result, the graphics in Radiata Stories present soft-toned colors, and the anime-style characters are cute and feature big eyes.

In Radiata Stories, you'll play as Jack Russell, a young hot-blooded boy who's trying to take the same steps in life as his late father Keian, who was a legendary knight of the Radiata Kingdom. After a riveting flashback scene of Keian fighting his supposed last battle against a ferocious water dragon, the screen switches to a scene of the main hero, Jack, who looks pretty goofy because he just got out of bed. It's supposed to be Jack's big day to try out for a position in the Radiata military, but he's wearing his pajamas backwards, and he obviously lacks intention, neither of which is a good sign. After dressing up and going to the tryout, Jack meets the game's heroine, Ridley, the young and talented daughter of the great Timberlake clan who's been thoroughly educated to become a knight. With plenty of guts but no fighting experience (and mistaking Ridley for a weak little girl), Jack gets quickly knocked out by Ridley during the exhibition match that's supposed to determine who will join the military. When Jack returns to consciousness to hear that Ridley was accepted to the Radiata military, he doubts his own ears. However, he soon hears his name announced as the second accepted member. Jack, of course, is accepted because he's a blood relative of Keian's. Together with Ridley, for whom he develops a passionate rivalry, Jack gets assigned to the Rose Cochon (Pink Pigs), a unit led by a peaceful but somewhat unreliable chubby man named Gantz. Here's where the game's story begins.

After you get accepted to the Radiata military, you get some freedom to roam around the castle until you reach its meeting room. Considering that it's the first area in the game, the castle is pretty huge. From what we've played so far, all the towns in Radiata Stories are relatively large, and they give you lots of room to explore. For example, the dwarf village that you'll visit on your first assignment has about a dozen houses spread across three levels of wooden platforms, and most of the houses have multiple rooms. The village also has a dungeon at its far end that's open for adventure, although the enemies there are too tough to challenge at such an early point in the game.

One of the unique things in Radiata Stories is that it lets you kick objects around the screen instead of "checking" them as you would in a traditional RPG. So although it's kind of rowdy, you'll be going all over the place, kicking objects such as barrels or closets to see if there are any items hidden inside. You can kick pretty much anything in the game, whether it be road signs, livestock, or even people. While some characters, such as the guards in the castle, will resist your kicks with unpleasant moans, other people will often get angry, so you'll get pulled into one-on-one engagements with them. It's amusing to see that some of the civilians in the game are pretty strong. Fortunately, though, losing to them won't lead you to a game-over screen.

Another interesting thing about Radiata Stories is that each person lives his or her own life. As a result, you can actually follow a person along to see him or her working and sleeping, as well as going to the rest room or hitting the dance floor. Time is an essential factor in Radiata Stories, because many of the events in the game only happen during certain hours of the day, and some events will end if too many days have passed. The world of Radiata Stories runs in real time, and about one minute in reality is about one hour in the game. Also, going to an inn to rest will advance the time to 7:00am the next day, which is convenient for those times when you need to wait a while to let the game's events progress.

While the towns in Radiata Stories are pretty big, the field map, on the other hand, has been pretty linear so far, and there haven't been any issues in getting from point A to point B. Rather than presenting random encounters, the game displays enemies on the field, and when you touch them, you land in combat. While battles are often unavoidable because enemies are blocking your path, you're still given the opportunity to prepare yourself before going in to battle. This is of vital importance, because the game automatically ends if Jack's life drains to zero.