So, Radiant Historia. As some of you may know, it's an RPG for the DS from Atlus. A lot of people have compared it to Chrono Trigger in just that it involves time travel, but there are a lot of other reasons to compare it to Chrono Trigger: It's an amazing game.
GameplayThe gameplay is very simple. It is a 2D game with overhead views. The world map is a point-to-point system and you can usually just walk through completed areas without needing to traverse them again. Dungeons themselves all have enemies visible and you can choose to fight or run away. Most enemies will hop and run for you but they can easily be escaped. If you hit them with your sword you can stun them and get a free turn against them in battle. You also get an ability later that allows you to bypass whatever enemies on the screen you want.
Speaking of battle, the enemy side of the map is a 3x3 grid. Enemies can start in any panel, may be up to two panels (or more) in size and can be moved with abilities. For example, if you have 3 enemies in the top, middle and bottom row in front, you can use an ability called Left Assault to push one left and then attack two enemies in one square. You can also use Left and Right Assaults to get all the enemies in the same square to attack them all at once. There are also abilities that hit certain parts of the grid, be it front row, back row, center, you name it, it's there. The fun of the game is balancing your party in regards to hitting enemies and each character can do that in their own way.
The battle is turn-based with a small twist: All of your units take their turns in the same phase. Say, for example, you have Stocke, Raynie and Marco about to take their turn with an enemy's turn after that. You queue each of their actions at the same time and they then perform the actions.
In addition to this system is the Change system. You can have your characters exchange their turns for anyone else's, moving their turn either down or up the turn list. So, again, take Stocke, Raynie and Marco and that enemy. Their turn order looks like
Stocke
Raynie
Marco
Enemy
Stocke
Raynie
Marco
You can have Stock change his turn for the enemy, who will then attack you. You may then have 6 consecutive actions against the enemy. The reasons to do this range from convenience to damage -- as you do more hits to an enemy, you do successively more damage as well, so it is to your benefit to always hit an enemy as many times as you can. Sometimes it's good to have someone swap their turn for a healer in case of emergency healing.
Along with the battle system is the White Chronicle, the time-travelling apparatus. Using it, you can warp yourself to any point in the story you want. While you can't go to absolutely every event, the game gives you several nodes that are where you travel to. The game is split into two timelines, Standard History and Alternate History. The player is free to choose whichever one they want and may go back and forth between them at will. At times, the game will prevent you from getting too far in one by requiring you to go back to the other for something. An example of this is at one point in the Standard History, Stocke will need to perform for a commander. He will learn to do so by someone in the Alternate History, thus allowing him to continue his progress.
The game has 233 different events, which are various things like plot events and side stories. Almost all of the side stories in the game will involve you time traveling. Examples include: giving a man medicine his wife bought after he died to prevent his death, convincing a painter in one timeline to give up some green paint to himself so he can complete a picture in the other timeline, or even telling a man not to stand in one spot so he doesn't get hit by falling debris.
CharactersI love the characters in this game. I simply love them. Whether it was the localization that brought them to life or their original writing, the characters in this game simply cannot be talked about enough.
The main character of the game is Stocke, a member of the Special Intelligence branch of the Alistel army. He is a no-nonsense type of person who speaks his mind and is not afraid to ruffle feathers in doing so. As an example of this, in the very early game you're asked to hire some mercenaries into the army. You go visit them and instead of needing to go kill a monster or prove something to the mercenaries, Stocke simply draws his sword and challenges them. It's simple things like that that cause the player to really get a good idea of what Stocke is. He also has several monologues which are refreshing in and of themselves because he thinks logically about every situation in the game. There's never a point where you'll go "Stocke, what the hell man!?"
The villains in the game are just as amazing. Protea, the evil queen of Granorg, cannot be written as a more unsympathetic character. She is a rotten, vile woman who the player will abhor in every way. In this, she does her job perfectly. The player will spend their time hoping they can take down the evil tyrant.
MusicDone by Yoko Shimomura, the game's music is absolutely fantastic.
The Edge of Green one of the game's boss fight musics, absolutely screams intensity and drama. You can tell where the Kingdom Hearts' influence comes from in a variety of the tracks as well. The town themes are each very appropriate, with Alistel's very quiet and proper, Granorg's severe and imposing. There is simply not a bad track in the game and I could probably identify every single track and where it's played in the game, which is much more than I've been able to say about any other game in a good while.
Overall, the game is at the very least a 9/10, if not even higher. If you haven't bought it, you need to go buy it.
If anyone has any questions or anything I'll be happy to answer them.
