User Reviews (1 - 11 of 50)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Tri-Ace returns to originality

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 63 / 81
Date: September 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am a fan of the Tri-Ace company. Their games have often combined good storylines with excellent music, but most importantly, they have always given the gamer a little bit more. With Star Ocean 2, and even more so, Valkyrie Profile, the gamer was (gasp!) not bored to fight battles, as strategy played a key role in success. Furthermore, SO2 and VP had extensive bonus dungeons and multiple endings (SO2 had 97, if I'm not mistaken), which added to replay value. I was a bit disappointed in SO: Till the End of Time. Although the after-game bonus dungeons were incredible, there seemed to be little originality present (including an item creation system that can only be described as baffling - where was the simplicity of SO2 and VP?). I liked the game, but was left wanting more...

In the case of originality, Radiata Stories (hereby dubbed "RS") delivers. A role playing game in which active recruitment is a driving force (much like Suikoden), you play as Jack Russell, the son of a famous knight Cairn, as he attempts to follow in his father's footsteps by joining the Knights of Radiata. Throughout the game, you will make friends and enemies (there are two separate paths that you can follow!), and in all, you can recruit 177 new members of your party (although I'm not sure that all of them may be called on in a single game).

The graphics of this game are beautiful (I wish that the Suikoden series would take a page out of this game's book!), and the recruiting is quite fun. However, as is often the case with these types of games, the story takes a back seat (it is very difficult to get interested in the events around you when your focus is making friends). Much like Suikoden and VERY much like Suikoden IV, there really isn't much going on here. Recruit people to fight a war that seems ill-conceived (and ill-defined - it is difficult to understand the motivation of the combatants) until you realize that some overarching entity is the true puppet master, in which you stop the entity. Moreover, the ending (or one of the endings - I haven't played through both paths yet) can only be described by "guh?". It is difficult to understand why you are doing anything at all, other than making friends.

But in that respect, the game delivers. It is difficult to recruit all 177 friends, but much of the fun involved is trying! Each person moves through the day according to some schedule, and at times might need your assistance. It is up to you to find those times, however. I found the recruiting to be a blast, in general. Of course, there is a secret character (maybe more, I haven't found everyone) that can only be recruited after defeating an after-game dungeon.

All in all, RS is a compelling title, and worthy of the legacy of Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile. I would however have liked more attention to be paid to the story...

Finding a Balance

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: January 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Radiata Stories is a mission-oriented fantasy rpg set in Tottaus, a world which houses both humans, elves, dwarves and even orcs. They may all live there, but they don't always get along. Humans, the only mortal race are views with great suspicion and war is brewing once again. In the background the dragons charges with keeping the world's balance begin the moves that will once again signal the destruction of mankind.

In the midst of the disquiet, Jack Russell, the son of a famous knight, leaves home to find his on way to knighthood at castle Radiata. He will make friends and enemies as he follows quests, builds his powers, and on day has to make a fateful decision about whether he will play on the human sight or join Ridley Silverlake, a young woman who leaves the knights to take up the cause of the fairy world.

This is a critical decision. On the one hand Jack follows a path of duty and destiny, and on the other path he finds love and community. The choice is like a lightening strike in the middle of the story, as difficult a one for the player as it is for Jack. Whichever way you decide to go, the game will never be the same. For me this inserted an element of dissatisfaction in the tale, as one of the choices leaves you with disquieting doubts. And you really do have to play both to get the whole game.

Much of the game depends on Jack's efforts to befriend the people of Radiata and the surrounding lands. This will be how he creates his teams for the missions and to recruit the better characters he must recruit many of the others. Playing without a guide this is the real difficulty of the game. Some characters are easily recruited with a word or a quick battle, but others take an effort to discover what they want and how to satisfy their needs.

The battle system is real time, very much under Jack's control, with opportunities for him to learn skills from other characters. It takes a while to fully understand the system, but once you do it becomes fairly intuitive. Main story character interaction is primarily via cut scene, typical of mission game structures. This is compensated for by the need to talk to just about every other character of the game.

It is easy to understand the popularity of the game even though I much preferred one ending to the other. Despite a tremendous amount of leveling up needed, I never felt the battles were overly repetitive. Except when you're primed for battle level 70 team has to stop to demolish a couple of ants. Artwork, animation, and music are also well done. A worthwhile game, but one that needs the addition of a guide for complete enjoyment.

Very Childish and Ultimately dull.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 19 / 24
Date: October 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Radiata stories is very much like a childs version of Star Ocean 3, it has hardly any mature moments and lots of unfunny goofy behaviour and jokes. I'll list whats bad and good.

What's Good...

+Good Graphics with Prog scan and Widescreen support this is very pleasing, the character models are nice as well.

+A lively atmosphere, people go about their daily business and it seems very "real", everyone isn't just standing around waiting for you to talk to them like most RPGs. Also armour that you buy actually appears on your character in-game.

+Combat with 3 other allies is decent if unspectacular, real time combat is always nice and gives you a feeling of being part of a team.

+ Optional boss Iseria Queen looks even more beautiful in this game than the others.

+A surprise character joins you in the post-game dungeon-very pleasing to see her again.

What's not so good..

-This is a very light hearted adventure that has you fighting rats, ants, animals and hardly any spectacular enemies at all. Boring.

-A very linear adventure, the sidequests are dull, and recruiting 150+ people can drag at times.

-The main character minces (Power walks) when you push the analogue stick moderately hard, it looks awfuly stupid.

-Dreadful ending, over in less than a minute or two - very dull.

-Only one extra dungeon that's very short and pretty easy.

-I strugled to get past the 30 hour mark, it becomes very predictable and you forget it as soon as you stop playing.

-Allies can never be equipped or have any stat changed, this is a single hero game.

-Very few weapons and armour to collect.

-Rigged fights that you cannot win, even if you are very powerful. You actually have to stand there and get beaten...

-Far too easy, where's the difficulty settings like SO3.

Not worth the full price, maybe pick it up when it goes cheap.

Parts of fate being played

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: October 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

is all part of destiny.
Pros:
-nice polished graphics
-nice voiceoveres
-addictive gameplay
-decent story
-175 friends to get, man those who love this kinda stuff, is gonna have a ball.
-Days that go by like grand theft auto
-2 diffrent paths along the way which makes playing a second time a near must
-This is a nice game by tri ace
Cons:
-If Jack dies, it's game over(It doesn't matter if the rest of your crew is 100% healthy, if you lose, game's over)
-You can only control Jack(Say like if I needed to be healed and my healer wouldn't do it until my HP was blinking red, it wouldn't be much help if I got struck before I was healed.)
-Too short(Even with collecting friends as a hobby, I completed the game in 31 hours. Really says much about the lenght of the game's story.)
-Too much is given away before events(Too much dromatic irony does get repetitive)
-Cutting ouy Nami Tamaki's opening song and Yuka Imaizumi's lyrics for the end making it a instrumental ain't cool.(I'm the kinda person who loves hearing a nice ending theme after beating the game. And I love Nami Tamaki, so taking her out sux)
Nutral:
-Jack is the only one you have to buy for(In a way it saves money, but yet if everyone else had a weapon to upgrade by buying, that be cool.)
-If you remember suikoden for all the good or bad reasons, collecting friends might be exciting or boring.
-Man I wish you could get Jack to get with any of all the other chicks than ridley(Like maybe Flau, Miranda, Iris, Lily, Natale, Alicia, and Rachel)

Radiata stories is a decent game, altho it's definitly similar to suikoden, but more addctive gameplay, but too short for me. For those who like RPGs or suikoden, should give this a try.

peace

Boring and very poorly made.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: October 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Tri-ace used to make great games like Valkyrie profile and Star Ocean, then they made this. I agree completely with the reviewer "Helel" in that it's childish and dull. There is hardly any story and the main character is uncharismatic and very juvenile. Some good parts like Ethereal Queen and Valkyrie show how superior those games truly are.

Star Ocean 3 is much, much better than this third rate game which fails to deliver on so many levels. The goofy behaviour is just awful and makes you think this is aimed at those 12 and under. There are almost no interesting fights, and some very dull enemies.

A real disgrace to the name of Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean.

Get it cheap and be mildly happy...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: May 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is pretty standard issue story wise. You play hero X, get involved with a grand malevolent scheme, thwart evil plans... blah blah blah. The story takes a huge back seat in this game, moving on.

The combat is the highlight of this game I believe, as should be expected of the makers of the Star Ocean series. You have your choice from a few different weapons each having unique attacks that you earn through use. You can combine up to 5 of these standard attacks to form your combo any way you see fit. You eventually learn one power attack (Volty Attack) for each weapon. I pretty much hack and slashed my way through every battle even though you can block and counter. I found that after you had attacks that could break the enemies guard you had basically won the fight. You can also call on your partners to use their various attacks once you get to a point in the story. Finally you can change formations on the fly which allow you to surround enemies and pound them or do flanking formations and other such things. The only thing that sucks about all of this is that you gradually open these features with the story so you're forced to wait quite a while before combat gets even remotely interesting.

Combat aside, this game is basically one big distraction of collecting friends Suikoden style. The crappy part is you don't get a castle/stronghold like in Suikoden, you simply collect 100+ equally worthless allies (Because your main character is all that really matters) while you wait for something to happen in the story. This drove me completely bonkers. I was so bored sometimes in this game I would repeatedly have to sleep or leave my game running just to get the story to advance because quite frankly I didn't care to collect every character after a while. In Suikoden you felt compelled to collect everybody because every now and again they acutally did something additional for you like sell you stuff or teleport you, not the case in Radiata Stories.

In summary, this is a collection game. The story is superficial and cliche, the combat is fun but one dimensional, and everything takes a side note to making friends. It's really a shame because the game looks and sounds good but it's can be a terrible bore to play at times.

Beautiful Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 24
Date: September 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game has many different elements that make it a wonderful game. There are different kinds of music, at times when you're walking around classical music will play, and at times silly music makes everything seem cute and cozy. All the characters are great in their own way. Makes me feel happy when i think of some of them, and how all other things from this game come about to be. I definetley recommend this game to everyone, RPG fans will defintley love this one. New comers, welcome :)

Popularity Contest

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: May 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I would have loved this game had it not been for the in-game clock rushing me to do things I'm not ready to do. It was a constant aggravation hurrying from point A to point B in time so that I could meet a character simply to buy a few items from him or her, or to get a key to opening up that character later on to become a friend (more on this saving grace later). And then, to add to that, there is only one permanent save point in the whole game, and going to that save point is often off-limits if you don't want to progress the story. In general, I felt rushed by the whole in-game clock system, and frustrated when real-life time-constraints forced me to move on.

The in-game clock also makes it hard to do one of the few things that makes this game fun: collecting characters to join in the quest. Even finding the characters that are recruit-able can be time-consuming, let alone getting the tasks done that is needed to recruit those specific characters. But as you collect more and more of these characters, the game turns into a Pokemon-like "gotta catch all" kind of thing. I constantly searched the back corners of the world of Radiata Stories in order to find absolutely every character possible, and though I failed in recruiting everyone I still want to go back through and try to find who I missed. Early on, most of the characters are weaker, but as the story progresses stronger ones make themselves available, and that means a better team when battling the monsters of the world.

That leads me to the battle-system. The main character, you, of the group must shout orders at the other three characters and, depending on what the characters are capable of, they will act accordingly. Most will attack if you tell them to, but only a few can heal. Plus, there is a link system where the four characters link up and perform special attacks or have special abilities. It adds a little something, I think, to constant, monotonous battle systems found in most RPGs. But still, there comes a point when shouting orders and linking becomes rather useless, as the characters get so strong that it turns into more of a button masher than anything else. Still, early on it's fun and unique.

The story is okay too. It follows Jack as he tries to go in the same path that his hero father did by becoming one of the famed Radiata Knights. Things don't go so well for him and he believes his hopes of becoming a knight are lost. It doesn't end that way, though, and Jack finds himself journeying with two other Radiata Knights on missions. Still, something goes wrong later and Jack suddenly finds himself ousted as a Radiata Knight. From there he must start over and joins the Theatre Vancoor, a warrior guild that accepts missions from the highest bidders (or whoever needs a job).

The three positives--the decent story, innovative battle system, and character collecting--made up for the one thing that nearly killed this game for me, that being the in-game clock. I had fun doing the things the game was rushing me to do, though I feel a little cheated at not being able to do everything the first time. As for recommendations, I can only recommend this to poeple who have quite a bit of time on their hands as it will take three or four attempts through the game to collect every character (or just two if you have an extremely large amount of time and a strategy guide).

Entertaining for ALL AGES.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: October 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As a big fan of the Squaresoft RPGs, especially the Final Fantasy games, I was psyched to check Radiata Stories out. Game Informer gave it a great review, and they were absolutely right - it's a really fun, creative game that you can't help but love. Younger players and adults alike can enjoy this diverse game, especially since it gives the player tons of freedom. As another reviewer noted, it's not a super-serious RPG epic like Final Fantasy X. Rather, it is an entertaining and often funny story about a young man's coming-of-age in a beautifully realized fantasy world. The depth of this world is the real draw here. It's more about exploring, making friends, and doing things your own way than it is about following a linear storyline like Xenosaga or similar RPGs. When the story finally starts to kick in during the game's exciting second half, you get to choose one of two paths, ensuring a unique replay. By the time I reached this halfway point, I'd already been playing 30 hours - there are that many sidequests, recruitable characters, and explorable areas. The story is more interesting than it initially seems, with some subtle influences from Norse mythology and a few cool twists. Ultimately, I haven't had this much FUN with an RPG in a long time. At once lighthearted and full of depth, this game is a must for anyone who wants an original RPG experience with lots of freedom.

A Tri-Ace game that doesn't completely suck!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: October 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Let me start off by saying that I have not finished the game; rather I am probably at or beyond the halfway point of it clocking in around 19-20 hours. So, I can't really comment on the ultimate progression of the plot, or "lame ending" as others have written, but I can speak of Radiata's other qualities.

-Plot. So far, mildly interesting, but nothing that keeps me dangling on the edge of my sofa or makes me miss two nights of sleep. The concept of following a young knight as he progresses through life is engaging, but again it's not the best plot idea out there.

-Dialogue. Probably what makes this game shine. Or at least what kept me from giving it 3 stars overall. The humor in this game is refreshing, to say the least, with each character constantly teasing and chiding the others around him/her throughout the game. The main character, Jack, is pretty funny, especially at times when he gets "really excited" or really peeved at his squadmates. You're reminded that Jack is an immature and sometimes annoying brat just about every time he opens his mouth. Probably sounds like it can a little old, but it's more funny than obnoxious. At least, I tend to think so.

-150 characters. Ho hum. Collecting characters fell out of favor with me after Suikoden. If this kinda thing is your bag, baby, then go for it. Stalking these fruitcakes throughout the city at all hours of the day and night trying to get a hold of them so they can ultimately tell you "Hey buddy, F you I'm busy" got REALLY OLD. I spoke with this one guy on the street, in the tavern, in the bar, and in the church and he kept saying the same stupid thing over and over. Why didn't he join my party, then? Oh, it's because I have to talk to him at the NIGHTCLUB to get him to join, and not the other places. Yeah, let me spend hours tracking this twig down to get him to join my party. He's probably armed with a banana and a half-spent roll of toilet paper, and dies in two hits anyway, so who cares? I also regret the developers' decision to make some characters agree to join you only after you spoken with them every day for a certain number of days. Nothing quite like artificially running up the length of the game by making players carpetbomb the city every day with hellos. The city is enormous, by the way. Just.... never mind, I'm going to change the subject.

-Music. Sorry, this is one of the aspects of Radiata that I really really really didn't like. While there might be a song or two that's cool, most are of the irritating twangy jazz/almost bluegrass kinda crap that just plain grate. The battle music is ok, but the boss music is plain unforgivable. I was never sure if a fight was about to break out, or if a circus troupe was about to perform. How about at least a little serious battle music?

-Battles. Pretty enjoyable. You basically control your main character while the CPU controls your teammates. However, you can "influence" your other characters through battle commands like "attack that enemy" or "be my meat shield", but these are kinda stupid anyway, seeing as how the best way to be successful in battles is to simply forego the commands and just bring along teammates who have high Strength levels. These Attack Machines will often mow down most of the enemy number before you can lift your weapon.

-Kicking. That's right, kicking. You can kick just about everything in the game. It's how you "find things". You can kick stones, pebbles, trees, insects, crates, lightposts, old ladies, treasure chests, whatever. It's the only way you can really obtain items aside from winning them in battle or wasting money on them. The kicking thing is funny at first (when it's novel), but I soon became tired of the sport, mainly after seeing how large some of these areas are. Oh, and especially after I kicked that one flower-planting lady in the tush twice, only to have her sic guards on me, who kept regenerating endlessly throughout the battle, forcing me to run using one of my items. That was frustrating. And that did it.

-Saving. More irritating than it needs to be. Rather than give you the option of saving ad libitum in the "overworld" or, hell, wherever you want, you can only save at certain locations, AT certain times. Yes, that's right, a save point in one spot will often DISAPPEAR once you advance the story. You can also only recover health by sleeping in your own bed, which coincidentally is usually found at the CENTER of the game's map. So you get to save your game, travel out on a quest fighting enemies, kicking nature, and collecting items for a few hours, fight a particularly nasty group of enemies which happen to kick your arse, and guess what? RESTART from the last save point. That happened to me twice early on in the game. Nothing like having to redo a few hours of work. Granted, this hasn't happened since the beginning of the game (actually, save points sometimes occur TOO often where I am in the game!) but at least I can say, you've been warned.

-Story Progression/Time. Almost didn't mention this point. The game runs on a day/night time system. Whether you're traipsing across the meadowlands, chasing down townspeople, or standing completely still getting a sunburn, time is moving. Every time the clock hits 12 a new day begins. Often after the main plot takes a break, you're allowed to run around and do whatever you want. The thing is you only have a few days to talk to people, buy junk to equip yourself with, or work through some sidequests. If you spend too much time and those days all pass, the main story automatically moves on. This can get a little annoying sometimes. On the other hand if you're the kind of person to says "screw it" to sidequests and spending money, you can just sleep in your bed 2-4 times until the main story progresses. Remember, the whole game seems to be on a day system, like a calendar.

That's about all I can say at this point in the game. I was interested in collecting characters at first, but then I found out that there were ~150 of them, and that it took way too much trial and error "talk to everyone you meet everyday with different people in your party" crud in order to convince many of them to join. So now I'm just moving myself through the main game, only stopping to complete the occasional sidequest, and I figure I'll finish the game in another 10 hours or so. The game is nothing truly outstanding, but it's enjoyable for what it is. (And don't buy this game if it's priced over $40)

Will I play through it again after that? Nope, no reason to-- even if there's an alternate storyline/ending. This game has enough charm for a good single play-thru and then it's exchangin' time.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next 

Actions