Radiant Historia

It seems like whenever an RPG is announced for the DS, they always have to over complicate things for the sake of the touch screen. Either by making it a touch only experience, or adding some weak touch mechanic to issue attacks. But Radiant Historia doesn't do that. Instead, it just focuses on being a console style RPG with a unique take on time travel. And honestly, its for the better.

Radiant Historia follows the story of Stocke, a special operativs who works for the nation of Alistel. Alistel has been at war with another country called Granorg for years. Stocke was given a mission to retrieve a spy from the enemy. Along with the mission, Stocke was given a book called the White Chronicle. Not exactly knowing what the book does, Stocke , along with some companions, reach the rendezvous point only to find out the the spy was being chased by the enemy. They try to loose them, but eventually, the spy, and Stocke's companions reach their end. It is here when the White Chronicle reveals itself to be a hidden realm called Historia, a place that only the White Chronicle bearer can enter. In this realm, Stocke is able to travel back in time to prevent the deaths from happening and finding a better escape route and successfully completes his mission.

The purpose of the White Chronicle is to right the wrongs and progress time properly, as it seems someone else has been messing with it. Because of this, Stocke creates two alternate timeliness. One where he remains as a special operative, and another where he joins a brigade and becomes a regular solider. Stocke will have to travel between both timeliness in order to progress each of them. Meaning certain situation may occur in one timeline, but if Stocke were to go to the other one, he may find a way to prevent the situation form happening there, which leaves the other timeline to move forward.

It sounds confusing but all that meant to me was playing through one timeline until the game stopped me from moving forward. Then I would go into the other timeline and do the same thing. So how does the game stop you? Well its simple really. Normally the progression through one timeline lead me to obtaining an ability which I would need in the other timeline to progress forward. For example: I needed to be stealth in one, so I opted to go to the other timeline, play a bit, and well what do you know? I now have the ability to become invisible. It eventually becomes a bit different from just gaining abilities, but the formula stays the same.

It's probably for the best that Radiant Historia keeps the whole time traveling simple, as it could of lead to a lot of confused people as to what they would need to next. It also helps that you can't just freely travel through time. See, the way it works is through events nodes. These nodes are created during significant points in the story that also represent the times Stocke can travel to, so it keeps things simple.

Of course this game being an RPG, you have to talk about the combat system. Enemies are placed on a 3x3 grid and are placed anywhere on it. What the player is able to do is use certain attacks to move enemies from grid to grid and hopefully, stack all the enemies together to deal damage to them all at once. It's a relatively easy combat system, and it works. While the idea of grouping together enemies is nice, isn't all that necessary. For the most part, your still issuing commands to your party members, telling them who to attack, and even having a meter for each character that when filled up, will unleash a devastating attack on to the enemy.

Radiant Historia's music is kind of a double edge sword. For one, its composed by Yoko Shiomura who I have a bit biased to. Generally, it sounds great. But my only problem with it is how limited it is. It seems like every time they need a certain mood, they have one song and one song only. When something sad happens, enter sad music, whenever you something tense happens, well let's just play that song entitled "tense song". Need some battle music? Well you get the idea. It kind can sometimes ruin a mood of the game when hear the same song over and over.

The strength in Radiant Historia is in its story and characters. For a story that involves time traveling, the game never really seems to go out of its way to screw with peoples heads. More or less, the time traveling was simply used as a game mechanic rather then a story device. What your left with is a story that is about one person who refuses to change and another person who needs to. And it leads to an interesting dynamic between the two.

Probably my favorite thing was that none of the characters ever fell into anime sterotypes. While some characters may look like they fit the bill, when it comes to personality, there was never a Moe, Tsundere or Dojikko like character. After playing a ton of JRPG's, this was such a breathe of fresh air. Instead your left with more relatable characters because of this. It's done so by a great localization in the dialog. Atlus has always had a strong localization team, and it shows here. Conversations never feel like there lasting to long, and it always keeps your interest.

There will be people out there that will be upset to hear that touch screen support is left to a minimum. It's basically used to move Stocke around, or used as a replacmet for the D-Pad when issueing commands during battles. But frankly, the game doesn't need it.

Radiant Historia uses time travel in a clever way rather then an excuse to go to a fire world, ice world or dinosaur world. Instead, its used as a clever puzzle mechanic to make the player wonder how they will continue the story in either of the timlines. A lot of people say that the game didn't take much of a risk because of the lack of touch support, but for me, it was a god send. The combat had an interesting concept, and that concept never ruined the flow of a fight. And the story and and dialog were enough to continue pressing forward until the end, Radiant Historia is a stand out RPG on the DS.