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jp's Radiant Historia (DS)
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| [May 20, 2014 06:40:12 PM]
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I haven't picked this game in a while.
It's been long enough that I have no idea what I was doing, where I was going, or anything! I'm not even sure if I finished the game or not.
Sigh.
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| [April 16, 2013 05:01:25 PM]
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Ok, my characters are in the low forties range - but the game clock is 20 hrs away from the earlier saved game! Did this game's prior owner simply spend a lot of time grinding? I don't know... I'm a bit worried because I really don't want to spend ALL that time with the game even though it's been fun so far. I should know where things stand in a few days. I hope.
The dual timelines have become a lot longer as well, it no longer makes sense for me to navigate them manually and its become a (minor) chore to reach certain nodes I want to travel back to. Overall, however, I'm still surprised by how coherent the whole experience has been from a narrative perspective. This could be so much more confusing and convoluted!
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| [March 21, 2013 09:59:45 AM]
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My hunch is that I'm roughly halfway through the game based on how much of the "overmap" I've uncovered as well as how many events I've added to the timeline (I think I'm at 50/240 or so...). Additionally there's an old saved game that clocked in at 40 hrs with characters at level 50 or so. I'm currently in the 26-28 range and have played a wee bit over 20 hrs.
I was really worried that the time-traveling and story-altering would get to incredibly confusing and frustrating. It hasn't been like that (partly because I learned that you can skip entire conversations with the start button - rather than speed them up with the x button), which is nice. In fact, the cognitive experience is quite interesting in ways I had not anticipated. I would describe it sort of like reading two books at the same time - where one is an alternate version of the other. They overlap and share characters, but you're not really treading the exact same ground. Every chapter or so, you switch. It works, and starts to make a strange kind of sense... I think the visual timeline is key here since it helps you anchor the events (and their relations to each other) in your mind. It definitely does a better job than other time-traveling games I've played.
The other interesting thing is that, as I slowly play my way through, the main characters are "revealed" in different ways. The allegiances you're supposed to keep are slowly shifting. For example, I've gone from being the hero to the outcast in one timeline (but not the other) - and former allies are now enemies. As I write this I realize that those shifts don't seem like they could happen slowly - but that's how I've experienced them. Maybe they feel more drawn out because of the time-line changing? (so, if I had played one story all the way through they'd feel more abrupt?)
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| [March 12, 2013 11:18:13 PM]
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Ok, so it's a tactical RPG of sorts. Fantasy story (a bit steampunk? with magic?) that seems rather "generic" (the world is turning to desert, people are fighting over this). The music is really nice - but other than that, why was everyone so excited about this?
Ahh... I think I know why. Perhaps the most interesting and intriguing aspect of this game is something that I'm only just beginning to explore and wrap my head around. It's basically a time-travelling game in which you can go back to certain events in time to change things and hopefully unlock new events and paths in the timeline. It's literally a time line - with nodes and branches and so on. The ultimate goal is to change things such that the "true" timeline is what actually ends up happening.
I really like the structure that is made visible for the story - rather than having a more loosey-goosey time-travelling narrative (ala Chrono Trigger), here you have it mapped out in front of you. So rather than just "following the story" (through different moments in time) I feel like I'm strategizing a bit more AND getting a better sense of the overall story. If I was feeling mean I'd say that the game is sort of like a choose-your-own adventure game (with neat combat systems and whatnot) where you're allowed to keep track of your choices so you can go back to them and make changes. You're supposed to traverse the entire tree of possibilities! (in fact, there's a little counter at the bottom that sort of tells you how many events you've seen/experienced, including the "the end" ones...)
Neat stuff.
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jp's Radiant Historia (DS)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Got frustrated
GameLog started on: Saturday 9 March, 2013
GameLog closed on: Friday 6 April, 2018 |
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