This is my first short review, so please bare with me while I work out a format for these.
Radiant Historia is a game produced by Atlus for the Nintendo DS. After going on a spree looking up DS RPG’s, this one kept popping up a lot, and it looked really really good, so I snagged. Well good thing my research was right, it was really really good. Something Atlus never disappoints in, is releasing very unique RPG’s that other companies just don’t have.
Radiant Historia is big on alternating between two different timelines. Early on in the game, it seems like a simple decision on what you want to do, and then you realize that choice is what splits the game into two major timelines. Sadly the game will initially think all of your choices will be like this, but with the choices in the individual timelines are all choose your own adventure style, where bad decisions send you to a dead end, and good routes progress the story.
Sometimes that both of the choices you’re given are bad routes, this is where the two timelines come into play. Basically what you’ll do, is pick a timeline, then keep playing until you reach a roadblock in the story (both choices are bad endings), and switch over to the other timeline, rinse and repeat. What will happen, is that you’ll learn or do something that more or less unlocks the good choice in the opposite timeline.
The battle system is quite interesting. Everybody is on a gid system, and everyone is restricted to their individual square. These grids work in two fashions: one is where there’ll be attacks that can attack multiple squares, and the second is where strategy comes in. When you have a chain of your party members attacking one after the other, you can smack an enemy into the square of another, and the rest of your party in the chain will do damage to both of those enemies. You also have freedom to change the order of attack, including switching the enemy’s turn with yours. Though this will have a penalty of having lowered defenses until the end of your turn. This makes the battles much more interesting, and so much more strategy.
The music is also friggen fantastic and adds to the mood when you’re adventuring through the game. Also the graphics are reminiscent of some PS1 RPG’s where the buildings and such are polygonal, and the characters are sprites. The only difference is that it’s just straight top-down, and the backgrounds aren’t pre-rendered.
Radiant Historia is a great game, and is definitely a game that will take up your time and dedication. If you can find a copy, definitely go out and grab it.
Conclusion: 9/10
RPG's Suck 