Let’s face it. You have a game that you’re secretly in love with, but slightly ashamed to admit it out loud. Radiata Stories is that type of game for me. I must have played this game over ten times, each time doing things a little bit differently. It’s one of those games that no matter how old it gets, you won’t stop playing it over and over and over and over and- well, you get the idea.
The journey starts with the aptly named Jack Russel, who is just as energetic (and about as tolerable) as the breed of dog that shares his name. You team up with a cacophony of up to 175 different people throughout the game, adding them to your party by either talking to them, running an errand for them, or something similar. Side with the humans, or side with the faeries; the progress of the game is up to how you want to play it.
I think one of my favorite small aspects of the game is the armor you wear, and how time never stops. The clock is always ticking in the world, and time changes, which means that in order to shop you must find stores open during the day. Some quests are only available by night, as well.
What makes it more interesting is how every NPC character in the game has a daily schedule they will attend to as the day progresses. As such, those that will join your party might only have a small window of availability in which you must find them in before you can recruit them.
Although, I think my favorite quirk of the game is that the ’search’ feature that is basically Jack just kicking things; desks, chairs, beds, animals, people. That’s right, you can kick people. Not a hard kick, of course, but it’s still funny to see how many people you can piss of in one game.
Radaita Stories is made by the creators of Star Ocean, which alludes to the mass amount of interaction you can be sure to encounter within the world. And while the fights are often, so long as you’re looking for them, you can create different formations of members in your party to deal the most damage.
Highlights:
-Recruit 175 different characters to fight along side of you
-Real progressive in-game clock that effects what you can and can’t do depending on the time of day
-Highly addictive story in which you can make different decisions that effect the game
-Detailed, not to mention charming, character and graphic animation
Radiata Stories
Platform: PS2
Developer: Square-Enix
Publisher: Square-enix
Find: Goozex
All reviews are based on final retail code unless otherwise noted.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:55 am
I never finished this one. Being a hardcore RPG completionist, the multiple playthroughs required and everything just made this too much of a time sink to commit to. I have it on my massive TO DO stack though, so one day…
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:26 am
I bought this new, and maybe played 8 hours of it … perhaps less. Just couldn’t get into it. It plodded along and felt like it took forever to progress. I liked the premise, and I liked some of the characters, but I just got bored. I’m also not a big fan of turn-based gameplay, either. Give me my hack-n-slash and button smashing, and I’m happy.
August 12th, 2009 at 4:31 am
I always enjoy your posts, you should write them more often