Radiata Stories

"A Decent RPG in wait for better ones."

Well, It seems I have been going through a lot of game withdrawal lately....not just any games though, with Resident Evil 4 out on PS2 I have few complaints, however I need RPGs. They are my bread and butter so to speak and they just haven't been cutting it lately even when they are coming out of the Final Fantasy Maker's franchise. Square-Enix.....why.....?????

Okay so enough with the melodrama. Radiata Stories is a decent game bogged down in its need to take itself humorously.

Graphics 9/10

The graphics were very nice. It was a little cartoony from time to time, but it fit the mood rather well. No jaggies or anything and loading time was acceptable except for the door closing and opening.....I hated waiting for people to walk through a door and then open it again myself.

Story: 6/10

This is where the game pretty much gets its only gripe with me. I want a game with variety and yet again I have received cliche mini quests and save-the-world situations. Not that there is anything wrong with that...but let me explain. You start out as the main character Jack yada yada stuff happens he is employed as a knight and finds some interesting evil deeds going on in his own castle that escalates into a huge world crisis. It's really that simple. He meets some friends, Ganz and Ridley, and can also befriend over 170 other misfit characters that I don't really care about....and that's where the trouble begins. This game does not go into serious depth at all. It felt all too kiddish and the side quests....well the whole game pretty much felt like a side-quest. But I guess it still ended up being entertaining and thats what counts. The ending was pretty blah though. I cant believe I really put 45 hours into that game. I leveled up to 75 when you only need to be at 40....the challenge level is just ridiculous.

Gameplay: 8/10
I'll give them some credit for trying to be innovative. The battle system is pretty open and you can create links with your friends for more powerful attacks. You don't really need to, but the option is always there. You can use all sorts of different weapons....short sword (1 hand) long sword (2 handed) lance and axe. However, you cannot customize any of your friends and it just feels drab. The battles are altogether timely and yet easy at the same time. You can only have one skill equipped at all times as well so if you actually take the time to level them all up and earn them from different characters, there's really no point unless you change them periodically throughout a battle (which is highly unnecessary).

Sound 9/10

The music was pretty good but not too catchy. It is orchestrated in weird areas and has some really nice jazzy parts within the Radiata City, but yet again I found it lack-luster. It was much easier to pop in a cd than have background music playing the entire way through.

Voice acting was well done. I have no problems here. The dialogue could get pretty cheesy in some scenes but the voice acting improved it ten-fold with an exception to Larks....

Characters: 7/10
The top 3 main characters were fleshed out accordingly, but anyone else had no motive or drive to join you or attack you. The people of Radiata are so two-dimensional its laughable. If you pick a certain side in the middle of the game you will know exactly what I mean. In either case, it still played out well with those few characters.

Replay value 7/10

I don't know if I really want to go through this game again. If I do, I refuse to recruit any characters since you lose half of them anyways and in either case, only a select few are decent and they can all end up strong if you level the up from the beginning. The storyline was alright but the side quests took away from the real action of the game. I admit the game was pleasant enough to the point that I enjoyed myself while I played, but it would be a chore to trudge through it again

Final Score 7/10

Wait until the price drops from 50. It's a good time waster but there are other games worth playing for much much cheaper.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/06