"Games like this define mediocrity..."

I had never even heard of Radiata Stories until about a month before it's release. Even then, I really wasn't even considering getting it. It looked kind of interesting, and the concept of having 177 battle party members was cool, even though I'm not particularly fond of games with countless no-names, or characters with no personality. I was wondering if RS would break away from that, and introduce us to a colorful cast, with at least some sort of backstory for at least most characters. Tri-Ace was responsible for the creation of this game, which was probably very appealing to most, considering they've put out such popular games as the Star Ocean series, and Valkyrie Profile.

However, as I got the game and played it, I could help but feel disappointment, even though this was a game I wasn't really anticipating, either way. What we get is a simple game, with simple gameplay, a simple plot, and a mountain of characters who might as well not even be there. But I'll get into that later. On to the review.

Graphics - 9/10

Quite easily, the best part of the game. Character models all look pretty cool, actually. Areas are large and sprawling, and nothing is really all that short on detail work. Although more and more games are paying attention to little details these days, RS doesn't disappoint in this area. Again, characters have not only interesting designs, but also display a large array of emotions. Infact, some of the times the character's face will display emotions atkin to exactly what you're probably feeling at the time. You can easily tell when characters are mad, happy, bored, or just flat out annoyed.

There are a lot of cool details in the areas, too. The game has this night and day system, so little details that might not notice during one, will appear in the other, and vica-versa. Lanterns turn on at night. Light will become varied depending on what time of day it is. There are even a lot of little other cool features like plants and trees swaying in the wind. You kick up leaves as you walk through a forest. The time spent on these details is definitely apparent. The biggest problem is that you really can't explore much of these cool areas, since every 'area' in the game is basically just a number of interwoven pathways. And as great as the backgrounds are, it's not very fun to traverse 3 areas for the 5th time.

One cool feature too, is the fact that the main character, Jack, can equip various weapons and armor, and his appearance will change depending on what items you have equipped. It's actually quite fun to collect these various outfits and such, just see all the cool different armor designs, and such.

Story - 3/10

This is where the game starts to faulter. As the game begins, we're introduced to Jack Russell, (?!) the son of one of the most prestigious and decorated knights in all of Radiata....yet he lives with his sister in the middle of nowhere in a house made of tree bark. Ok. Anyway, the day has apparently come for Jack to go to Radiata castle for the knight try-outs, to see if he can become accepted into the ranks of the knights. After an anticlimatic battle, in which Jack loses quite horribly, the people of the castle realize that this is, infact, Jack RUSSELL, the son of that prestigious knight, so Jack is accepted into the knights anyway.

You'll eventually be able to accept quests from the guilds in town, and begin recruiting various characters. However, these quests are somewhat boring, and usually have you doing menial tasks like, fetching animal teeth, and defeating rats, and will usually net you unnoteworthy rewards. Also, some quests will procede the story, but unless you look up which quests are plot-important and which aren't, you may accidentally advance the story when you don't want to. There are also these weird other little requirements, which make the story progress, like resting at certain times, or allowing too many days to pass. It gets to the point where you might have to rest in your room 4 or 5 times to get the story to pass. On the flip-side, you may be in the middle of doing optional missions and go to rest, when the story will suddenly progress itself when you don't want it to.

The game also has one of the most boring, and unoriginal plots, ever, which entails; generic lessions in how important friendship is, racism between humans and non-humans (Elfs, dwarves, etc.), dragons which govern various elements like fire, earth, water, etc, and you'll ultimately discover that the world is possibly spiraling itself into destruction. Infact, you often don't know what's going on, or how any of this even relates. All of this is generic, and none of it is interesting. You'll actually find yourself probably not even caring about the plot much at all. Also, late in the game the story diverts off into two radically different branches, and makes you choose between one or the other. Whichever path you choosh will pretty much forfeit half of your allies you've made up to that point. Neither path is all that interesting, to be honest, and both paths eventually lead to different endings. Neither of which really make much sense, or resolve much of anything at all...

As for the characters, I stated earlier that there are 177 of them. The game is constantly compared to Suikoden for this sheer number of characters, and even though Suikoden has less characters, most of them are at least somewhat interesting. In RS, all 177 characters can be used in battle, but they all function so similarly that you might as well only have about 20 characters at your disposal (more on that later). Also, out of these 177 characters, only maybe 15 have any sort of relevance to the plot, or have any background at all. Jack himself comes off as being completely unlikable. He doesn't think about anything at all, until someone gets hurt, or nearly dies. Infact, early in the game, the only thing he cares about is fighting the strongest possible enemies he can find, and constantly takes actions that usually lead to his captian getting into trouble with his superiors, or his friends ending up nearly dead. While some of his antics are somewhat clever, and he's got some charm, you just can't help but not really care for this kid, to some extent.

Control - 9/10

There is nothing inherently wrong with the control. Everything about the game is fairly simple, so controls both in and out of battle are simple, responsive and quick. You really won't have any difficulty here, simply put.

Battles - 3/10

This game has the most generic battle system, ever. It's almost insulting how simple it is, and I don't even know where to start. This game is pretty much the definition of 'button masher.' While most people give that title to other games with real-time battle systems like Kingdom Hearts, Tales of Symphonia, and Star Ocean 3, this game goes beyond (or would that be it doesn't go beyond..?) those games. In those games, you could at least use various skills, and magic, or there were some other complexities to the battle systems.

In RS, we've got nothing like that. Jack can equip 4 different types of weapons (One-handed swords, Two-handed swords, Axes, and spears) and you'll learn various 'skills' by using that weapon often. Sadly, these skills are nothing more than slight variants of eachother. Most of them are just slashes in a different direction, and you don't even equip them to a different button. You just allocate them to your physical attack button, and hammer on that until the enemy dies. There isn't even any MP, or definitive skill system. Also, it's probably most practical to just use the one-handed swords, since the other weapons are either too slow, or too weak to even be worth using. Infact, if you decide to suddenly switch weapons, you'll have to learn all the 'skills' of that weapon over, which means you'll basically start over from nothing. So, it's best to just select one weapon and stick with it. Also, each weapon as a set number of 'CP' allocated to it. Each of these so called skills costs a certain number of CP, to CP of all the skills you equip cannot excede that of the weapon. Unfortunately, you can't equip more than 5 skills, no matter what, even if you have CP to equip more.

The only slightly interesting thing about this battle system is that, by attacking enemies, you'll store up 'Volty points.' By pressing a certain button, you can expend 10 volty points to do an attack which usually does decent damage, and knocks the enemy back or down. If you store up 100 points, you can unleash a powerful 'Volty attack,' which does an extremely powerful, unblockable attack against your enemy.

Jack will be your lead character, as you can't control any of the other 176, and the computer AI will take their lead. You can issue various commands to them, such as using items, and attacking a certain enemy, but you have to actually BUY books and scrolls which will allow you to do so. So, in a sense, you really can't even tell your characters what to do unless you buy these items. You'll eventually get the ability to use 'link attacks' which allow you to do things like surround your enemy and attack from all angles. Sadly, the outcome of these are usually silly, as your characters suddenly become literally linked to Jack, and will run around frantically until they find the target (which they usually don't). The only interesting thing about Link attacks, honestly, is that if you do it so many times, you'll learn these passive, or support skills for Jack, that do things like raise his stats, or prevent status effects. Sadly, you can only equip one at a time, and Jack is the only one who can learn them. The other characters will be stuck with one skill the whole game.

Also, the boasted 177 allies you gain in this game is really a joke. Most of these characters are absolutely worthless, aside from maybe a dozen of them. Some of the early characters seem like nothing more than joke characters, since most of their skills cause them to fall down, cower in a corner, or stand around admiring their weapon. Those are ACTUAL skills, by the way. Also, a lot of the best characters in the game are easily missed. You may find that you missed some random, unimportant guy early in the game, but you'll eventually figure out that because you missed him, you actually missed 12 characters later down the line. It doesn't really matter, though. The only reason you'd want these powerful characters is simply because their attack stat is higher, or because they hit more times. Most characters have something like 1 to 3 skills, although a few have as many as 4 or 5. You can't change their equipment or weapons, and they don't really learn any other skills or abilities. In effect, they're basically just mindless attack drones, that serve as diversions so that you can run in with Jack and deal the real damage. It's really quite a letdown, and I wasn't even expecting much to begin with.

Music - 7/10

Another category where nothing is inherently wrong. The music is decent, but not exactly memorable. One interesting feature is that you can collect various disks throughout the game, and play them in Jack's room, so that you can effectively listen to most of the music in the game in this way.

Replay - 7/10

As absolutely average as this game is, it's got some replay value. Simply beating the game unlocks an optional dungeon, where you'll fight powerful enemies and bosses, find some powerful equipment, and you get a hidden character to join you there. Like I said before, there are also two paths (and effectively, two endings) so you'll have to play through the game twice to see both endings. There is also a new-game+ feature, which allows you to carry some items over, as well as any weapon/support skills you learned, and the lists of characters (not the characters themselves, though) that have already joined you. Infact, you can't complete your list without going through the game two or three times. So, technically, there is reason to play though the game multiple times.

Overall - 4/10

I didn't expect much to begin with, it's all-around a mediocre game, with simple gameplay, and a ridiculously cliche plot. Even with it's mind-numbingly simple battle system, if you're into button-mashing, this game might not be bad. Infact, at times, hacking away through enemies isn't so bad, but there are just no interesting features that make anything stand out about this game. To be completely honest, I'm almost drawing a blank as to how to conclude this one. It's a game that's just so completely mediocre, that it's technically, not good, but it's not really bad, either...

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/30/06