Radiata Stories

"A little bitta this and a little bitta that"

As a spiritual successor to the one of my favorite RPG series; star ocean, I have been in anxious anticipation of this game since I heard that it would share similarities in it's battle system to it's cousins of yore. While my anticipation was quite justified, I can't help but see some of the ignored quagmires with this game's interface. There are things that the developers screw up that I have NEVER seen screwed up in a game of this calibur.

GRAPHICS (9/10) - This game is simply beautiful. Every NPC and enviornment has a seemless anime, hand-painted type of style to it, the likes of which is unheard of in most RPGs of this manner. It is obvious, the attention to detail which was taken in the making of this game's graphics engine. My only two complaints in the whole matter is the slowdown in battle when the going gets crowded, and the lack of visual flair in battles to include spell effects and enviornments.

SOUND (6/10) - Turn it Doooown. The music is NOTHING to write home about. Sure there is a catchy tune or two and the voice acting is about top notch during the cut scenes. However battle voices are so limited and repetitive that they're sure to wear on your nerves before your first boss fight. There's not one battle theme in this game that gets you hyped up to fight like those in "Star Ocean: The Second Story". The music in the game just seems to underworked and childish to be part of an RPG; regaurdless of the theme. To make matters worse, you can't even turn the battle voices off without turning ALL voices off. Kinda sounds like coersion to me, no?

PLAYABILITY (7/10) - This game is not as "pick up and play" as it's childish nature makes it look. Ironically, it's the game's SIMPLICITY and not it's complications that make it such an ichy experience. For one thing, the menu system is so dispicably simplified, that it uses 1 sub menu for the purpose of equipping weapons, unequipping weapons, setting skills, unsetting skills, and checking character status. All rolled up into one. The result is a cluster of multitasks which should have just been catagorized like it is in OTHER RPGs. The same problems that plauge the game's menu system filter right down into the city of Radiata which you are expected to explore. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE radiata. But could someone PLEASE get me an acurate MAP or transport system between parts of the town? Some times all that running is just a needless hassel; ESPECIALLY when you are trying to get a specific character on your team which requires a messload of running around. Not bad if your into it, but theres just to much clutter for such a linear game.

CONCEPT (8/10) - An excellent concept, that doesn't quite work like it should. Let's give you over 100 NPCs to recruit to your party, and not let you directly control any of them. Lets give you a 4 part, massive city to roam which; besides the look and the NPCs who roam them, have no distinguishing factors between them. Lets make the most promising action-RPG type battle system and completly blow of the concept of targeting. Things like this make me think that "Square-Enix" is loosing it. Now granted, I have spent most of my game time recruiting the party members which I wanted most (which ultimately boils down to who looks the coolest), so there's definately quite a bit of "pokemon" like joy to be had there. The kicker to THAT concept is that you won't be able to use them on many of the story missions. You know...when it COUNTS! Another kick in the pants as far as that goes is that you can't directly control your comrades in battle accept through orders given. Again...this won't bother some people. I on the other hand was raised on Star Ocean where you could syphon in and out your party members at will. To me, this is the limit of the century, and a sad excuse for a character system. However, many of the concepts that are implemented are quite effective if not slightly derivitive. The game works on a real time, night and day clock system (ala Majora's Mask), in which NPCs rome the streets waiting for you to talk to them, do their little mini quest, and recruit them to your party (ala suikoden). The whole thing works for one reason or another, but being a semi-fan of both series, I can't help but feel like I'm cheating my wife and my girlfriend with some uber-talented hooker.

STORY (6/10) - Take A childish storyline which is driven souly by humor. Throw in a bright eyed, bushy tailed protaganist who is barely old enough to legally drive. Mix into it, a city which the ENTIRE first part of the game focuses and generates from, and you have this game's story in a nutshell. Jack Russell is your character who aspires to be a knight just like his father before him. So he sets out to castle to take and pass the trials. Little does Jack know that a semi-linear quest, an anticlimactic plot and battles which (at best) can be described as hijinks await him. Though theres nothing particularly WRONG with the story...ANYONE entering into this game, staring at the "Square-Enix" logo, and expecting ANYTHING along the lines of a final fantasy style epic will be sorely dissapointed.

FUN FACTOR (8/10) - I'm having a blast personally. The strategy in the battle system which not being able to control your NPCs' saps is quickly replaced by a pattented "LINK" system. This is undoughtably the finest idea in the game. It's rough to explain and not available automatically in the game anyhow, so you'll find out soon enough. Take that and couple it with the shear pokemon esque giddiness you get from collecting the NPCs you want on your team, and watching them fight along side of you, and you got your game right there. To make things better, your constantly have the option to take missions and earn money to spend as you please on armor, weapons or in-battle-commands( yes, for some ignorant reason, you have to BUY them). Even though I like more meat and potatos' to my RPGs, I'm simple at heart, and enjoy the little joys that come along with playing RPGs. Despite this game being overly ambitious in places and not ambitious enough in others, I think that any RPG fan that doubles as a comical anime fan should pick this game up right away. It doesn't take itself seriously enough to be a classic, but it pays enough attention to detail to keep you engaged until the beast that is "Dragon Warrior" comes along and systemattically super glues all RPG fan's faces to their screens in orderly fasion later this year.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/05