A foray into comedy.
Pro: Solid storylines, 177 recruitable characters with distinct personality, multiple play thru
Con: Requires some patience, lack of direction and save points, difficult targeting system
Radiata Stories opens with vocal fantasy-based music with a prophecy of dragons coming to tear down Man’s achievements. It then cuts to a good quality anime opening with dramatic music playing and several of the major characters in action. Don’t let it fool you into thinking this is a serious RPG. Radiata Stories goes forth into the path less taken, that of comedy, with a large cast of goofy characters, quirky dialogue, and an enjoyable, but not-too-bright protagonist.
Radiata Stories is set in a medieval fantasy world called Tottaus where the humans of the Radiata Kingdom reside side by side with elves, dwarves and other fantasy races. The story begins with the knight trials for the protagonist, Jack Russell, who gets knocked out in the first round and by a girl no less. However due to Jack’s legendary father, Jack is selected despite his poor showing at the trial to join the Radiata Knights along with the girl who beat him and the rest of the contestants, Ridley Silverlake. The two end up in the Rose Cochon brigade under the command of the portly child of another legendary knight, Ganz Rothchild.
After a few misadventures and much bickering, the brigade is disbanded due to a scandal where Ridley is fatally injured and by Ganz’ choice revived using an elven ritual. Both Jack and Ganz are discharged from the Radiata Knights as a result of it. Being not the types to dwell in the past, Jack joins the local warrior guild, Theater Vancoor, while Ganz ends up in the thieves’ guild, Void Community. Over time, Jack ends up doing better than expected in Theater Vancoor and gets promoted to sergeant with his own squadron.
At the same time while Jack is out adventuring, there is trouble brewing. The world is sliding quickly into unbalance with the diminishing resource and the spread of a plague that affects both human and non-human creatures. The non-human creatures blame human’s arrogance and destructive nature for it. The humans respond with violence and cruelty. Soon dragons, the guardians of the world, are appearing to correct the balance of power, namely exterminating humans. Before long a war between the races looms on the horizon and Jack must decide where his alliance lies. From there the game diverge on two different storylines, each offering a piece of the whole story.
Like most RPGs, Jack needs friends to help him on his adventures. The game has about 177 characters Jack can recruit for his 4 man party. Recruitment ranges from simply talking to them or defeating them in battle to generous financial donations or fetch quests, even some blackmail. Unlike most RPGs where NPCs just stand around waiting for the protagonist to come along and repeat the same thing over until the quest is done, every character (including non-recruitable characters) in Radiata Stories have a daily schedule of activities they follow and may say different things at different times. Half the recruitment process involves searching for the character.
Between recruiting friends, Jack has to take on various missions that will take him out into the wide world of Radiata. Every region (and districts in town) have a unique feel and sound to it. Although you can only travel on the given path, a lot of detail is put in the environment and background. The game also incorporate at day to night time progression. If you stay still long enough, you can see the reddening of the sky as the sun, then darkening in night. In addition to detailed backgrounds, all the characters in the game are well developed and animated. The character designs is your standard fare of anime style. Besides having a unique look and personality, all the characters in Radiata Stories have their own set of moves in battle. No one has the exact some move, even if they are from the same squadron or are identical twins.
The music for Radiata Stories is anything but usual. There are a few tracks in the game that are your usual fanfare for a fantasy game, but in general it sounds more jazzy and upbeat. At times, the music is even silly (i.e. Paya Paya Record). The voice acting is good for the game. There are a couple of voice that seem a little off. However, the voice bits tend to get annoying in battle. All the characters seem to have one or two phrases they say over and over.
Radiata Stories’ battle system is simple and fully explained as the game progresses. Jack is the only character you can control, though you can issue commands such attack, heal, run away, etc. for your party to enact upon. There are only few buttons you need to concern yourself in battle – attack, parry and the direction pad. The attack and parry buttons are pretty self-explanatory. Later in the game, Jack learns the link ability. What the link ability does, it makes your party members literally jump into formation that can increase the effectiveness of the party. Certain links can boost the attack effectiveness or the defense of the group. Up to four links can be assigned to the directional pad. Besides the health meter that you need to keep an eye on, there is a “volty” meter that can be filled with successful attacks. The volty meter is used to power Jack’s super/ultimate attacks, certain commands and links and can be use by other party members for their ultimate attacks. Despite the simplicity of the battle system, the targeting system can be a hindrance. To target an enemy, Jack must face the character and lock-on with R1. If the lock-on is not used, Jack have a tendency to target any enemy he sees, however, it does not necessarily mean it is the nearest one or the one attacking him.
At the core, Radiata Stories is not a very long game nor is it very difficulty. The game can be beaten around 20 hours, less if you have some powerful members in the party. There is no need to level grind your party. The game opens up to new areas with harder enemies just when you feel like you have reached a limit. There’s very few, if any, puzzles to be solved. The bulk of the game is spent on recruiting your friends, oft times resulting with you developing a Pokemon-catch-‘em-all syndrome. The game, however, makes not mention that certain actions may forward the storyline, closing your window of opportunity to recruit some characters. Fortunately, Radiata Stories comes with a New Game+ option that allows you to start a new game with some of your previous items, skills, money, etc. and with your Friends List intact, allowing you to pursue the ones that you have missed. In addition to completing your Friends List, you can also unlock a bonus dungeon for more fun.
All in all, Radiata Stories is a solid game with good storylines, a well developed cast of characters, and an unusually upbeat soundtrack. It deviates from the usual melancholy found in Final Fantasy and idea that the world revolves around the protagonist. It may not bring anything new to the genre and does have its share of flaws, but it is an enjoyable game to play or add to your collections.