Radiata Stories

[Cruise Control]

I picked this up a while back, just because I heard tehres lots to collecti fi I ever got bored.

I haven't touched it yet though, is it any good?

[Jowy]

Of course it is, it's tri-Ace!

I didn't play much of it, but the battle system was simple yet fun, and the characters were entertaining.

[Cruise Control]

I don't want an entertaining game, I want a fun game. Is this one?

[Jowy]

Yeah, it's pretty fun. ;D

[Darkja]

yeah, it's pretty fun. the battle systems good and the story's long with many side-quests.

/

[Dreddz]

I thought it was generally good, kinda lost its appeal and fun factor near the end of the game though. Still, if you own it its definately worth playing.

[Vermachtnis]

It's lots of fun especially with 177 characters to play around with. With New Game+ and a bonus dungeon waiting after you beat the main story.

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

It's a fun game and it's also by Square-Enix! *Moves*

[Zeromus_X]

Radiata Stories is a very unique game of tri-Ace, the characters and story are not usually dramatic, but instead very comical. This is actually a funny RPG, and you should giggle at it from time to time.

The gameplay seems quite basic at first, but tri-Ace is still down with us regarding action-paced battles. Though not comparable to Star Ocean 3 or Valkyrie Profile 2, the battles are still quite fun, especially when you discover Links and Commands. The story takes awhile before you can obtain these, which unfortunately drives people away from the game's 'simple' battle mechanics.

However, the 177 recruitable NPCs are the prime selling point of the game. You can only recruit half of them in one playthrough depending on an important decision in the story, giving it tri-Ace's integral replay value factor. Though be prepared to look at an faq to recruit some of the more powerful characters.

Even moreso than just recruiting the NPCs, is studying thier daily schedules in the game's internal day/night system. The expansiveness of Radiata Stories is truly amazing, a very fair compromise for it not being the prettiest game on the PS2's block. The ability to kick anything (and anyone!) also gives the game even more crazy expansiveness.

The story does take awhile before any certain goal or momentum is put in place, but the story is pretty exciting later on. Most people would probably agree that the Non-Human story has the better development though the Human Story is the most tragic. If you can hold out long enough to not lose interest, you should enjoy the developments in the plot, dealing with prejudice and what-not.

The soundtrack is also very nice, and fits the mostly silly atmosphere of the game, composed by Noriyuki Iwadare (Grandia and Lunar series), and he was generous enough to arrange some other tracks from tri-Ace games as well (a more orchestral version of Mission to the Deep Space, and a funkedelic version of Incarnation of Devil for example). The boss battle tunes in particular are very nice.

The one very, very, very irritating thing about RS is it's in-battle voices. It's a shame considering how nice the battle voices in Star Ocean 3 were. Don't get me wrong, the voice actors themselves aren't bad, it's just that they have to repeat certain lines over and over (177 characters to recruit and everything...) and it can get very annoying to hear Gerald say 'What's wrong?!" or Jack repeating his battle grunts over and over again, Ganz laughing, et all. This probably isn't an issue to everyone.

tri-Ace is also very nice with it's bonus dungeon in this game, with the standard cameos and the whole 'playground of the gods' deal. You may even recruit a familiar purifier of souls if you get far enough...as mentioned previously, the New Game+ option is nice if you want to speed through the alternate story to recruit the other half of the NPCs to complete the Friend's List, but only if you are a completionist.

Well, I promised I wouln't do this more than once a month, but you get two long-winded posts this time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy Radiata Stories.