Radiant Historia is an excellent game with a great plot involving time travel. It feels like a good classic RPG, but at the same time it also features innovative concepts and interesting mechanics that make it pretty cool and totally worth playing.
The story takes place on a continent that is slowly turning into sand, wiping out everything, both flora and fauna, and this has resulted in a war between two nations fighting over the land that is still fertile. The mission of Stocke, our protagonist, is not only to end the war, but to discover why everything is turning to sand and to find out if there is a way to solve it.
The best part of the story is not the central conflict, but how it unfolds. Everything revolves around a very cool time travel mechanic. Making use of the white chronicle, we will make time travel to key events that we have lived after having received this gift. The first decision we make in the game is the one that creates two timelines, and to advance in the story we will need to travel between these two timelines to achieve in one what would not exist in the other. All other decisions do not create more ramifications, but a bad decision shows us a sudden end that would end the whole story. Me being a big fan of the concept of traveling between parallel worlds, this fascinates me, and more so considering that this game has some adventure game elements, such as unlocking secret areas or getting mobility options as we get skills in the main story, for example, there is a skill that allows us to become invisible and serves us to avoid combat.
It helps a lot that the story is good and interesting in both timelines, and it's also great that the side quests involve using the White Chronicle creatively, which speaking of side quests, there are some that are very hidden or it's not very clear how they are solved, so eventually you will have to resort to a guide to complete them all. The game is fine in terms of content and duration, perhaps the story progresses at a slightly slow pace, but I consider that rather than being a defect is something good to my taste, as it is used to build a better story and make it more impactful. It is a serious story, but still has very natural moments and interactions between characters that serve to reduce the tension generated by everything. Although I have to admit that the game could have had a couple of additional towns and dungeons, as I feel there are very few locations and it can get a bit monotonous at times, so I would have loved to have been given more variety.
Hmm... maybe another thing I would have liked would have been more freedom as well, as it is a fairly linear game, but I guess that was a sacrifice that had to be made in order to get the time travel mechanic to work well, so its linearity is very well justified. Also the top screen of the DS could have been used to display a map.
Speaking of the combat system, it is good and quite original despite maintaining the basics of a JRPG with turn-based combat system (similar to FFX), this game presents an additional layer of depth, since the enemies are located in a 3x3 grid where their position matters. We learn moves and skills to be able to move enemies from their position and thus take advantage of this mechanic, as we can gather several enemies in a single cell and attack them all at the same time, thus chaining combos to cause greater damage. It's great to experiment a bit here and try out different combinations of characters, since each one has abilities that distinguish them from the rest. One good thing is that there are many consumable items, some of which can be used to either improve our stats during combat or worsen the enemy's stats, which I liked, since we don't necessarily have to have the character with support skills in our party all the time. In general, I like the battles in this mode, as they are quite satisfying, and it avoids the combats to just select "Attack" and that's it. Most of the time it's an easy game if you know what you're doing, though by the end it can get difficult if you get overconfident. I won't deny that the difficulty and some characters could have been better balanced, since sometimes it's quite easy (as I mentioned before) or some characters can have a very low level at certain points, which makes it difficult. Something I would have liked would have been to have had the option to swap between characters or change equipment during a battle. Despite what I said before and as contradictory as it may sound, I think this game could even be ideal for RPG newcomers, so if you are not very experienced in this genre do not hesitate to try it.
Stocke, the protagonist, is something I also loved about this game. He's someone cunning and aloof, a protagonist who is actually capable and takes his responsibility and role in the game seriously, who develops very well in this story while still being who he is. Without him and his companions, I don't think this game would have been the same, and I personally identify with this type of protagonist, so that adds up to points for me. To make a quick comparison, he's similar to Cloud, only (debatably) better, although don't get me wrong, I love Cloud as a character and he's also and will remain one of my favorites. I guess this already depends on taste, but I'm sure that at the very least most of the characters in this game will leave a good impression on you. It's great that they aren't flat characters in terms of personality and motivations, and the time travel helps to see how their reactions would be if "x" or "y" event happened. The antagonist was also a great character, but I won't talk more about that, as finding out who he is comes as quite a surprise.
Conclusion
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Radiant Historia is an exceptional game in its genre, it's not perfect, but it makes up for it by being a very memorable and unique game, and somehow it also feels very traditional in a good way. With a story worth seeing for yourself without any spoilers.
It's a shame that this game is over, as I really liked it a lot, I'd like to see another game with all these mechanics someday, maybe a spiritual sequel or something. Although well, in some future I plan to play the 3DS version, so I have that for consolation.
The story takes place on a continent that is slowly turning into sand, wiping out everything, both flora and fauna, and this has resulted in a war between two nations fighting over the land that is still fertile. The mission of Stocke, our protagonist, is not only to end the war, but to discover why everything is turning to sand and to find out if there is a way to solve it.
The best part of the story is not the central conflict, but how it unfolds. Everything revolves around a very cool time travel mechanic. Making use of the white chronicle, we will make time travel to key events that we have lived after having received this gift. The first decision we make in the game is the one that creates two timelines, and to advance in the story we will need to travel between these two timelines to achieve in one what would not exist in the other. All other decisions do not create more ramifications, but a bad decision shows us a sudden end that would end the whole story. Me being a big fan of the concept of traveling between parallel worlds, this fascinates me, and more so considering that this game has some adventure game elements, such as unlocking secret areas or getting mobility options as we get skills in the main story, for example, there is a skill that allows us to become invisible and serves us to avoid combat.
It helps a lot that the story is good and interesting in both timelines, and it's also great that the side quests involve using the White Chronicle creatively, which speaking of side quests, there are some that are very hidden or it's not very clear how they are solved, so eventually you will have to resort to a guide to complete them all. The game is fine in terms of content and duration, perhaps the story progresses at a slightly slow pace, but I consider that rather than being a defect is something good to my taste, as it is used to build a better story and make it more impactful. It is a serious story, but still has very natural moments and interactions between characters that serve to reduce the tension generated by everything. Although I have to admit that the game could have had a couple of additional towns and dungeons, as I feel there are very few locations and it can get a bit monotonous at times, so I would have loved to have been given more variety.
Hmm... maybe another thing I would have liked would have been more freedom as well, as it is a fairly linear game, but I guess that was a sacrifice that had to be made in order to get the time travel mechanic to work well, so its linearity is very well justified. Also the top screen of the DS could have been used to display a map.
Speaking of the combat system, it is good and quite original despite maintaining the basics of a JRPG with turn-based combat system (similar to FFX), this game presents an additional layer of depth, since the enemies are located in a 3x3 grid where their position matters. We learn moves and skills to be able to move enemies from their position and thus take advantage of this mechanic, as we can gather several enemies in a single cell and attack them all at the same time, thus chaining combos to cause greater damage. It's great to experiment a bit here and try out different combinations of characters, since each one has abilities that distinguish them from the rest. One good thing is that there are many consumable items, some of which can be used to either improve our stats during combat or worsen the enemy's stats, which I liked, since we don't necessarily have to have the character with support skills in our party all the time. In general, I like the battles in this mode, as they are quite satisfying, and it avoids the combats to just select "Attack" and that's it. Most of the time it's an easy game if you know what you're doing, though by the end it can get difficult if you get overconfident. I won't deny that the difficulty and some characters could have been better balanced, since sometimes it's quite easy (as I mentioned before) or some characters can have a very low level at certain points, which makes it difficult. Something I would have liked would have been to have had the option to swap between characters or change equipment during a battle. Despite what I said before and as contradictory as it may sound, I think this game could even be ideal for RPG newcomers, so if you are not very experienced in this genre do not hesitate to try it.
Stocke, the protagonist, is something I also loved about this game. He's someone cunning and aloof, a protagonist who is actually capable and takes his responsibility and role in the game seriously, who develops very well in this story while still being who he is. Without him and his companions, I don't think this game would have been the same, and I personally identify with this type of protagonist, so that adds up to points for me. To make a quick comparison, he's similar to Cloud, only (debatably) better, although don't get me wrong, I love Cloud as a character and he's also and will remain one of my favorites. I guess this already depends on taste, but I'm sure that at the very least most of the characters in this game will leave a good impression on you. It's great that they aren't flat characters in terms of personality and motivations, and the time travel helps to see how their reactions would be if "x" or "y" event happened. The antagonist was also a great character, but I won't talk more about that, as finding out who he is comes as quite a surprise.
Conclusion
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Radiant Historia is an exceptional game in its genre, it's not perfect, but it makes up for it by being a very memorable and unique game, and somehow it also feels very traditional in a good way. With a story worth seeing for yourself without any spoilers.
It's a shame that this game is over, as I really liked it a lot, I'd like to see another game with all these mechanics someday, maybe a spiritual sequel or something. Although well, in some future I plan to play the 3DS version, so I have that for consolation.