Radiant Historia starts extremely strong, with a puzzle-box-esque structure to the time travel that sets itself apart from Chrono Trigger despite all the noise to the contrary, and a combat system that has so much going on it made me feel like a genius once I learned to capitalize on all of the mechanics. However, by about the halfway point the cracks began to show. The story refuses to reveal many of its biggest mysterious until it's foreshadowed them on such a large variety of occasions there is no impact when they land. Likewise, the combat system lost its charm for me as things didn't develop into interesting directions, particularly highlighted by having a really bad XP curve and questionable skillsets that makes using anything other than a couple of party members kind of pointless. The added narrative content of the Perfect Chronology version also undermines what did work about the story the base game was trying to tell, particularly the ending of the base game which is so bold that undercutting it feels like it should be a crime. I still liked this game quite a bit, but the problem areas grated me enough that I couldn't love it wholeheartedly the way I wanted to from the opening hours.