Radiant Historia — Choosing Your Decisions Carefully

This is Opinion #2 for this game. The first one from Angela can be found here.

Time travel stories are always tough plot strings to weave in any medium due to the ease of unintentionally creating some sort of plot hole. For a medium whose storytelling abilities is still in its infancy despite the progress it’s made over the last decade, hearing one of them approach a story involving this plot thread raises a few eyebrows — usually not in a good way. Radiant Historia is an interesting case here, because gamers (well, the ones that bothered to pay attention to it) took a glance at it and responded with minimal skepticism. Why? Because of Chrono Trigger’s existence.

Chrono Trigger is constantly cited as one the best, if not the best, Japanese RPGs around, especially when it comes to time travel stories in games. RH’s appearance is clearly inspired by many 16-bit JRPGs that were prevalent on the SNES, titles many gamers are fond of — an era constantly (and arguably) referred to as the golden age of the genre. Its concept was put together by some who were on the Radiata Stories team (though it has no similarities to that game), but the majority of the game was handled by the Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey team. With the concept being similar to Trigger’s, the assumption was that this game would take after that one. That’s not quite correct.

That’s not a disappointing reality, though, as it means RH does its own thing. Its gameplay structure involves time travel, sure, but in the sense that the game’s protagonist, Stocke, has to go down two different-though-vaguely connected timelines in order to weave together the best future. There’s no distant time travelling done in this game, which should quell some fears considering that’s how incongruent threads are made. Heck, it has to be a good concept if Final Fantasy XIII-2 is “borrowing” it!

The localization editors loved them some shout-outs!

Stocke is an agent for the nation of Alistel’s special intelligence agency, and is usually given the most dangerous missions because he knows how to best think situations through. He’s different from the usual JRPG protagonist in that he’s a fairly intelligent and capable guy, despite his reticent qualities. He cares quite a bit about his accomplices despite not showing it with words. However, he is similar to some JRPG characters in that he’s one of the best agents for a nation at the implausible age of 19-years-old — and he’s not the only standout here in that regard. Despite that, the game shifts more towards aversions rather than embracing clichés.

Stocke’s quest begins when one mission goes horribly awry. When the game begins, he and his team are tasked to rescue an agent who found himself in trouble while trying to flee the opposing nation of Granorg. Little did they know they were running right into a trap, the result of which finds his accomplices amidst turmoil. Stocke himself severely wounded after the battle. After passing out for a short time, he awakes in Historia, a world between space and time. He meets two twins named Teo and Lippiti, who give him the power to travel through time for an important reason.

The story is rather wordy, but it never feels excessive. Unlike games like Ys Seven and especially Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, it doesn’t waste your time with silliness despite having plenty for you to read. That’s quite an achievement when some games in the genre are going for the opposite, so kudos to the writing and localization team for giving the game an excellent script.

You’re with Raynie and Marco for a good while, but you get options later.

Through a decision made a little later (though still early on), the game’s path will split in two for the “Standard History” and “Alternate History” timelines. Throughout the quest, you’ll have to go back and forth through both in order to progress, meaning actions you do while in one path can affect the other. It’s never a bother to go through areas again because the developers were fortunate enough to give you the ability to skip the story sequences. You’ll be doing this a lot of you want to obtain all the nodes; most nodes are left for story sequences, while others are for quests you’ll obtain at certain times. There are a total of 236 in the game.

Fulfilling the requirements for optional nodes are easy enough early in the game, but the descriptions for them will become more and more vague as you go on. A few of them are bad enough that they’ll leave you searching for an online guide for a solution. One in particular is nearly impossible to fulfill without one — and it just happens to be one of the quests you’ll need to complete to get the game’s true ending. That’s rather brutal, and it makes you wonder whether the developers intentionally made some of them with the expectation that the player would eventually pursue an FAQ for assistance.

Those two are pretty helpful. Seriously.

The battle system is different from any you’ve seen in JRPGs thus far, which is refreshing despite some hitches. The best way to win battles is to move enemies into a specific position and use attacks that can hit all of them simultaneously. The enemies are on nine blocks spread between three different rows, and the majority of your characters have special attacks that can move them onto either one block or row so other characters can maximize damage output. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual turn-based affair. Enemies can be seen on the field, and Stocke can hit and stun them for a preemptive attack. It’s somewhat similar to how Blue Dragon handled encounters, though sometimes you’ll have to hit enemies multiple times before they’re stunned, and hitting them doesn’t automatically initiate a battle.

The minor problem comes when the battle system becomes a rote experience, especially early on. You’ll be mostly bound to Stocke and his accomplices Raynie and Marco to start, characters who don’t gain abilities to hit enemies in multiple blocks and rows by themselves until later in the game. This means you’ll be using the same tactics in nearly every battle you encounter to end them quickly, the bosses notwithstanding. The situation is finally shuffled up in Chapter 4, when you’re free to switch one of them out. Keep in mind that flaw affects both timelines, so that’s not a short while.

The game’s music was composed by the venerable Yoko Shimomura, and the entirety of its soundtrack is up to her usual standard. You’ll have a tough time finding a bad track throughout the game. Unfortunately, its OST is only on one disc; this is not a short game, meaning you’ll be hearing many of the same tracks multiple times. The fact that none of them get annoying after hearing them so much is a testament to how good it is overall. It also shows that the team didn’t have much of a budget to work with.

 You’ll have more opportunities to mix your tactics up later on too.

The low budget feel is evident throughout the entire game, though you can tell the development team did their best to work with it. The backgrounds are simple-though-pretty, but the sprite work is far from the best you’ll see in a DS game. They all have a simple look to them, and they’re lacking in animation. But the most telling sign lies with most of the alternate endings you’ll get if you make the wrong decision when prompted. It’s rare that you’ll actually see everything that happens, and in lieu of that is a description of what goes awry. (And yes, these also marked as nodes on different timelines.) It’s not a big issue, but it’s a shame when you consider this the kind of RPG that deserved to have a little more money thrown at it. It’s one of the better JRPGs to come in the last few years, on handhelds or otherwise.

Even if you choose not to pursue obtaining all the nodes, you’re still in for a fairly lengthy quest with Radiant Historia. Whenever you hear someone claim the DS’ RPG lineup is laden with nothing but ports and remakes of older titles, this is one of the games you can use to prove them wrong. Not many people played it, but most who did list it as one of the best JRPGs to release this year. This reviewer agrees with them, and it’s not too late for you to experience it either.