Radiant Historia - The recap!
It's a strange game, but I mean that in a good way. I think it's a pretty rare example of a game that does almost everything well, but nothing in a way I find outstanding. I can't really think of much like it. Maybe it's this generation's answer to something like Phantasy Star 4 (or, if I belabour the time travel point, there's always Chrono Trigger!). This isn't bad at all, I've just gotten too used to going back and forth between games that excel only at plot or gameplay besides a few favourites (okay, I lie, aside from Suikoden I just play the ones with good gameplay these days <.<).
On the gameplay front, Radiant Historia takes a pretty simple gimmick (the ability to push enemies around in various ways) and runs with it rather nicely. It keeps randoms consistently fresh and exciting as you have to find ways to deal with them efficiently. This is fun! You get new moves (which affect the strategy here) at a pretty good clip for keeping things fresh, although it is arguably a bit slow early on? My main complaint there was probably more that it took ages for PCs besides the main three to be terribly relevant + around for a long time, though.
Battle design was generally quite good. I think there was a lack of good boss battles early but around midgame this changed in a big way. Even before then there's a few surprisingly interesting fights against elite enemy soldiers and the likes (basically suped-up-randoms) but then chapter 4 hits and oh god that Thaumachine time to actually form a real strategy! The Spider that followed not too long after was also decent albeit in an incredibly straightforward way. Ultimately I think I only had resets on two bosses (Thaumachine and the last boss before the final) but I felt challenged often enough. The game also started having some pretty good randoms which can beat you around if you don't take them seriously, especially if you get ambushed.
The game does the usual Grandia/etc. thing of "hit enemy before battle to get advantage", something I'm kinda neutral on. Takes a little more patience sometimes because you may have to hit them multiple times. Whatevs, I guess it's different at least and I can't really recall being annoyed by it. I'd say this decision would make encounter control suck but the game gives you a way better version of that anyway about a third of the way through. Props to it for that.
Storywise, hmm. Not really what I expected? The game takes quite a serious tone and sets out to tell what... would be a fairly generic if enjoyable, almost Suikodenesque war story spliced with the impending doom of the world. I say "would be fairly generic" instead of just "generic" because, of course, the whole time travel business. Although it sometimes caused a few plot points to feel a bit convoluted as time travel is wont to do, overall, I thought it was handled well. It certainly gives the game's story its own unique flavour and that's something I appreciate a lot. So you have a modestly creative story that's in a style I enjoy (it doesn't wallow in the tropes of the genre I find distasteful) and even if it didn't blow my socks off at any point I will say I generally found it quite solid.
Cast is also fairly generically solid, though they do vary a bit here. None of them get quite as much character depth as I'd like (it's not the type of story that stops to have lots of character introspection). Stocke is, of course, the highlight. Sporting more depth than most of the cast, he also manages to just come across as a generally cool and competent guy. He makes his share of mistakes (especially in some of the bad endings!) though on the whole has it fairly together for an RPG main (which fits with his age and profession). He's not going to be my favourite main given that, yeah, he is reasonably straightforward, but he's still very well-executed and generally plays his role well, balancing nicely the competent special agent personality without falling into Gary Stu cliches or spouting faux-badass lines at every turn like some of that type.
Rest of the cast is... hm. I do like the main villain. His setup is generally good stuff, Miang-ish even. I felt they fell maybe just half a step short of convincing me about his motivation (Stocke bought it more than I did, but... I guess that's fair, given the situation) but only a half-step; they did a pretty good job with him. The other major villain (who had me pretty convinced that he was the main villain for most of the game) was a very effective douchebag and I do like his type, although he's not quite as good as another similarly-motivated villain from a game I've played within the past year! Not too much to say about the rest of the villain cast. I kinda wish Dias and Selvan hadn't gone out as total morons but oh well.
Other PCs! Rosch is the favourite of the non-Stocke crew, with Eruca, Raynie and Marco also working fairly effectively. Rosch kinda gets less important in the back half of the game but he's very important and quite well-done in the first; the game totally had me buying his and Stocke's relationship which is crucial to both characters. Gafka... had real problems existing. Aht was a bit annoyingly clingy, but at least it's reasonable for someone her age. It just felt a bit unnecessary, since it was also spliced with her keeping a secret or two too many. So those two are certainly the game's weak points cast-wise, but hardly fatally.
Aesthetically, well. Visually the game is pretty straightforward and I have few comments on it. The music deserves a bit more note as being quite good almost without exception (I do like Alistel's theme in particular), though it is a pretty small soundtrack so occasionally it feels a bit repetitive.
Cast gameplay comments! Note that I missed almost all of the optional skills.
Stocke: Stocke's big thing is pushing enemies wherever you need them to be while having generally pretty solid stats. He plays a pretty crucial role in randoms because most everyone else is worse at this job, although non-Stocke parties would be workable. Otherwise, against solo targets he uses Air Assault, and he has a bunch of decent healing moves. G-Fire gives him some damage, but that's super late and even then not amazing; generally you will use someone else as your cannon.
Raynie: Once you get that first spear that boosts MAG a whole bunch, Raynie settles into her role as that cannon. She gets plenty of elements to play around with. Her optoins besides the main spells feel kinda limited, but whatever, you need someone to kill the things everyone else groups up. Outclassed by Eruca eventually (but temporarily) but even then you might want to go back to her for having the best durabilty of the high-offence types.
Marco: Marco is this weird kinda support dude. Sure, he gets healing, but it's not too special because of items. He gets some battlefield control (in particular, Grapple, which Stocke misses) though low power means he's not the first priority for using it. But... mostly, he is about a couple neat buffs, and Trans-Turn. Trans-Turn makes up for his own skillset/damage failings, since it's dirt cheap, and lets you pass other turns to Stocke and your cannon. Since his durability is okay, he's a solid choice for a third for much of the game. EDIT: Oh yeah, All Recovery is really great and hard to replace against the final boss, that deserves note! Got pretty lucky by using Marco there.
Rosch: It's so hard to form an opinion on Rosch, because the dude's never around. Literally does not exist for almost the entirety of one of the game's two halves means he's really underlevelled. Since his speed is bad I didn't feel like I was missing out on a huge amount either. LVP.
Aht: One of the three choices for party cannon and generally felt like the weakest of the three. Traps are quite problematic because a lot of critical enemies can't be pushed into them which makes her near worthless. Even when they can be, against randoms, it's inferior because you'll always get one less enemy... more damage tends not to make up for this. Of course, she's quite good against the bosses that -can- be pushed so I could see her use rising with knowledge of upcoming bosses. Outside traps she doesn't really have anything that excuses the bad durability, best healer probably but see Marco about that.
Gafka: Well, he certainly wasn't fixed in value as the game went on! Initially just bad, Stocke with a bit higher power/HP but minimal pushing ability is not what you need for a third at all. Then he gets Quigong Wave and becomes serviceable since uh that is a really powerful physical move. He also gets some GT pushing abilities which have uses, especially Echoing Impulse for the grouping effect. But Wind God Strike. Oh my god, that move. Missable, but with it he just becomes MVP in randoms period late. Less versatile against bosses though clearly.
Eruca: Cannon! Eventually. Just bad at first. But once she actually got a spell besides that non-elemental garbage she started with and her magic lead on Raynie opened up she became really good. Some decent GT spells mixed in there too even if "let others group things for her -> G-Frost rapes" usually felt like the best strategy. And then there's Trans-Turn in case you don't need her own tricks! She outclassed Raynie pretty badly despite the latter's advantages late... then she vanishes for the last two dungeons and only returns just in time to be useless for the final boss! Oh well.
Final party was looking to be Stocke/Gafka/Eruca but then no Eruca meant Raynie drew back in, and Marco was a better fit for the bosses at the end so he drew back in then, and so ultimately my final party is what I predicted! But at least it ended up a more interesting cast than I was anticipating.
Final time was about 28 hours, endgame level 50-53, game gets... I'm still waffling between an 8 or a 9. As I said initially, it's not a type of game I have an easy time rating, so I'll have to chew it over some.
