Radiata Stories final impressions

[passerby]

As usual, start with the bad points

#1
Inconsiderate save system. Save points are few - only 1 is active in the entire game world at any time. Game also has habit of dumping characters into events and hour(s)-long quests with no save points at all. Game is not difficult, so minor annoyance.

#2
Story has good material and background, but lacks good execution for the second half of the game - 'anime-cliche' in a certain sense. Related to #3. A minor complaint.

#3
Extremely irritating protagonist. TriAce acheived a historic first - inventing a fictional game character that I'm annoyed with. Unhappy with a game protagonist before? Well you have not seen the new low that TriAce has accomplished. The candidate is also coupled with a stupidity and ineptedness that appears to be a neccessary ingrediant related to #2 - The protagonist has the common sense of a retard, and never asks the brightly-flashing-screaming-obvious questions that will lead to the story ending very quickly and the author(s) having to come up with better scripts and plots.

I therefore take some perverse delight in knowing that for giving me such an irritating protagonist, Radiata Stories is cursed with a sales number of a mere ~300K to date - a painful disappointment for such a high profile and otherwise excellent product. They will never hit the 500K mark in Japan.


Good Points

#1
Excellent visuals, proscan support for 4:3 and 16:9. Screenshots are available everywhere so I won't elaborate. Very good music score - one of the best I've heard this generation.

#2
Impressive gameworld. Not as hugh as DQ8, but still many places to explore. The castle and city qualify as some of the best designed in the gaming world. Wonder how TriAce does a 'GTA-world'? It's very different, but still a virtual world in its own class. A lot of care and detail - no room, no alley, no corridor is generic.

#3
Side quests, combat, all the usual stuff - they are all excellent. So let's get to the real jewel of the game - the inhabitants of Radiata Sories...

#4
- There are 177 recruitable characters.
- All the 177 + shop-keepers + waitresses are UNIQUE.
- All of them have their own daily schedule of activities.
- Recruiting a character of course, requires certain conditions to be met, and depends on each individuals' time schedule.

What this means is that the massive city of Radiata is a joy to explore. Walking down the same street for the 30th time at different times of the day is still a unique experience. There's that high priestess accompanied by the acolyte twins, heading to the jewel shop. There's that priest there at that corner, still preaching to the masses. Eh, why's that burglar from the other side of town staring at him? That old monk is practicing kung fu on the bridge. Why is that guy from the warrior's guild walking into a bookshop? I'll follow and see. Wait - that's the magician girl I spoke to yesterday. Maybe I'll see where she's headed instead.

And so on and so forth and so on and so forth...


Final Recommendation
The only major complaint is the irritating village idiot protagonist. If not for that, my recommendation is an unhesitant GET. Maybe it's just my personal preference. Maybe knowing that the protagonist is going to be irritating makes you ready and less annoyed when you play the game. If so, then go on - GET.

 

[Fox5]

What....what is this?

I'm assuming a game review, but you didn't say what system was on, or even give a background to introduce us to the product.

So it's an anime RPG with a GTA-like city? Is it shenmue?

 

[AlNom]

What....what is this?

It's an anime RPG for the PS2. Personally, I've never heard of this before (but then I haven't heard of most of PS2's thousands and thousands of games)

Good ol' Google to the rescue

http://www.google.ca/search?q=radia...=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

 

[Farid]

First things first, Your post was highly apreciated Passerby, I was already interested in Radiata due simply to the fact it was a Tri-Ace game, those impressions make me looking forward, a little more, for an US release.

I have a few question, BTW, if you don't mind, could you describe the Battle System? Visible, or not, ramdom encounters? Is it in full Real Time?

I know that some previews/reviews might have the answers to thoses questions, but I tend to avoid reading thoses since they, often, contain "spoilerific" material.

Then, to anwser Fox5 question, RS is a "new" RPG developed by Tri-Ace, developers of the Star Ocean serie and of, the excellent, Valkyrie Profile, and the game is published by Square-Enix.

 

[passerby]

Apologies for not being specific, I thought that this was quite a high profile release, so did not elaborate on its origin. The previous posters have already clarified its nature. Google search should also bring up it's official site. In japanese, but screenshots galore.

Re: Battle system
Enemies are visible on the field. Battle is triggered when contact occurs. Not all monsters are hostile, and some will sleep at night. Unless the protaganist walks up to it and gives it a kick(more on this later). 4 characters in a party at any time, battle in realtime and only the protagonist is player-controlled. All units run around freely on the 3D battle map. No complaints about allies' AI in battle. Protagonist can learn or purchase new battle commands which are issued to allies, e.g. 'heal that ally', 'attack that enemy', etc. Group formations with special bonuses and effects can be learned .

Re: Battle system specific.
Protagonist has 4 usable weapon types. Each weapon type has nearly a dozen attack styles. Weapons and styles can be changed in the middle of combat. Styles are executed in the order they are assigned, so some thought is needed to arrange styles so they can chain properly. Facing a swarm of weaker enemies? Switch to spear, select wide-sweeping styles to clear them quickly. Facing a single powerful weapon-weilding humanoid? Use sword, select styles for breaking parries and pair with fast styles. Characters also have a 'volty gauge' which fills as battles unfold. Once full a 'volty break' special attack can be executed.

Re: Kicking
Didn't mention this the 1st time. Most objects in Radiata stories are 'kickable'. That means, the protagonist can walk up to an object and kick it. The object 'jumps' or shakes, and if lucky an item is obtained. This is really a substitute for the traditional 'press examine button when facing objects in environment'. The impressive part is that every object in the environment has some 3D attribute to it, and will really shake or jump. Blackboards, chairs, tables, buckets, brooms, rocks, beds, cabinets, flower pots, signposts, racks, paintings, boxes - if it's in the environment, it's probably 'kickable'.

 

[DigitalSoul]

Ah, great info, much appreciated. Any word on when or if this game is coming to north america?

 

[passerby]

Conspiracy theories(according to me) say that this, DQ8 plus some other high-profile titles will be released in US and Europe with uncanny coincidence around the time of X360 launch in the respective territories.

 

[Farid]

Thanks again for the info, passerby.
The game is now in my Must-Buy list, thanks to those explanations about the battle system.