Radiata Stories

"Finally, a refreshing RPG"

It's been about a year since I've played an original RPG that I could label as brilliant. Just about every aspect in the game is well above par, and I would confidently recommend it to any gamer.

Plot The plot follows the life of a young aspiring, over confident swordsman named Jack, who joins the Radiata knights and hopes to follow in his Fathers footsteps in becoming a famous, powerful knight. At this time, the Humans and Non-Humans (light/dark elves, dwarves, orcs and goblins) are both finding it difficult to keep peace with one another. The plot begins to build when Jack and his party of Knights are ambushed by a group of Blood Orcs. From here, a number of events take place which results in the start of a new war between the Humans and Non-Humans, and forces Jack to question his role in the scheme of things. This question is left for the player to decide. 'Do I help the Humans, or the Non-Humans?' Both threads give different perspectives and show both points of view. This level of depth is something missing from a lot of games. There's no 'bad guys' who are always in the wrong like many modern RPGs. While the plot isn't as complex as other games, it definitely serves its purpose for the game and should keep the player interested until the end.

Characters: There are 177 characters that can join your party. I never thought that any game would top Suikoden as far as quantity goes, but this did by a long shot. It's almost impossible to go into depth with each character but they do have at least a page written on them that you can read whenever you recruit them. Some of these characters are awesome too. I found myself really annoyed when I was unable to recruit some of the cooler ones like Elwen and Gerald.

Gameplay: Some say the battle system is boring but I enjoyed it. Jack is the only character you can directly control. The other three in the party act on their own unless you shout orders to them. There are four types of weapons to choose (Sword, Great Sword, Spear and Axe) and each of these classes have ten attacks that can be customized into combos. Then there's the Volty attacks (like Limit Breaks from FF), skills (enhance stats), formation linking, and equipment, which all play a pretty important role in the outcome of the battle.

Other: I think its important to mention how interesting the world is, particularly Radiata City. There's four different guilds located around the city that have certain styles of characters within. Exploring the town and the guilds in order to recruit them all was very enjoyable. Even watching the behaviour patterns of each character from day to day was interesting. It was also good to see a large dungeon open up when you finish the game as I always like exploring the world after defeating the end boss.

Apart from the simple, short endings, the game was near perfect. Radiata Stories is definitely something I would recommend to anyone.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/09

Game Release: Radiata Stories (US, 09/06/05)