Sunday 13 January, 2008

Summary

A RPG set in the far-off lands of Radiata, Radiata Stories offers unique and interesting features. Starting off on the journey in the kingdom of Radiata, you play as the young protagonist Jack Russell. Jack enters a knight examination in hopes of becoming a powerful knight as his father once was.

Gameplay

The game begins at a nice pace. The tutorials are quick and easy to understand and the controls are easy to grasp. For players such as myself who hate reading paragraph after paragraph of explanations, I found it rather refreshing. The game deviates from the standard turn based systems in which most RPG games follow. Instead, the battle system is a mesh of Tales of Symphonia, Star Ocean 3, and perhaps some Kingdom Hearts. The game also replaces random encounters with enemies on the field in which you can choose to encounter or leave alone.

Well done, is all I have to say about the battle system. Players can target entire mobs or single out enemies. You have the freedom to build up your own combos, stringing together attacks you deem worthy of using. With each stroke of the weapon, you accumulate points that can then be used to unleash powerful moves. There are also commands you can give to your allies along with formations you can get into to strengthen your defenses of offences. Managing your health is vital as in most RPGs, the death of the main characters means the dreaded “GAME OVER” sceen.

The story of the game itself isn’t anything too great, but is offset with its colorful cast of characters and their interactions. Humor combined with the characters “offbeat style of play” worked well in creating some comical scenes. The main character is witty yet far from being what you would call smart. In fact, he is probably just above the idiot level, which is something rarely seen in today’s hero character.

The game lacks any of what you would call “dungeons”, but that does not take too much out of the game, as there is plenty else to do. There are tons of characters to recruit to build up your alliance and a wide variety of items to collect to enhance your character. Some things I found particularly noteworthy about this game are the recruitment function and the ability to change your characters looks with different sets of armor. The recruitable NPCs all follow their own schedule as they move about the world at their own pace, which will keep most people who strive for perfect completion playing for hours on end.

The voice acting and visuals are surely things to note within the game. The graphics stand out with an anime-look and vivid colors. The voice acting along with the facial and body language were done extremely well. The fluctuation between a almost a two-dimensional look and a three-dimensional feel really adds to the game’s effect. The game has its failings, but the overall game has a nice feel to it.

I'm also playing Radiata Stories for 80K (though I think I've yet to get as far as you), and just wanted to let you know that reading your review too has helped me to broaden my opinion of the game.
I had a few reservations about Jack at first, but I think you are right: his near-idiocy makes him different from protagonists today and more endearing as a character. :)