Written By:
Patrick Orquia
TITLE: Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology
DEVELOPER: Atlus
PUBLISHER: Atlus
GENRE: JRPG
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 1
RELEASE DATE: 29 June 2017 (JP)/13 February 2018 (NA)/16
February 2018 (EU)
PLATFORM: 3DS system
Radiant
Historia originally came out on the Nintendo DS in November 2010 in Japan and
January 2011 elsewhere. I have never played the original, but I have heard of
high praises about the game, one of them saying that this game is one of the
best JRPGs ever. Any game can be the best JRPG ever, sure, and it would take me
a few more years after that to see for myself if such high praises are indeed
true.
Fast
forward to last year, a port of the game was announced for the 3DS, now titled
Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology. I knew back then that it would be good,
and the chance to finally play the game made me look forward to it.
Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology is not just a simple
port on the 3DS. The game now has additional story contents, gameplay elements,
and some minor graphical enhancements. There are not much changes in visuals
and the game still retains the feel of the DS original. No stereoscopic 3D,
much to my dismay, but I understand why that is the case. The game doesn’t need
it, since this is not a 3D remake of the original, but still, since it’s on the
3DS, the added 3D effect would have improved it, if even ever so slightly.
Visuals aside, the game really shines with its deep story and unique battle
mechanics.
The game starts in the middle of a war in the continent of
Vainqeur between rival kingdoms of Alistel and Granorg. The continent is desperately
trying to get rid of a mysterious plague that turns the land into a big desert
and the people to sand. Stocke, the main protagonist of the game, is a member
of the Special Intelligence unit of Alistel, and he is tasked to lead a
rendezvous mission along with new recruits Raynie and Marco. Before the mission
started, he was given by the SI chief a magical book with blank pages called
the White Chronicle. At the start, he doesn’t know what the book is for, other
than for bringing good luck, as he is told. During the mission, Stocke’s team
gets ambushed, with Raynie and Marco getting killed. When all hopes seem to be
lost, Stocke gets transported to a place out of time called Historia, where he
is greeted by two mysterious twins with magical abilities, Teo and Lippti, and
they tell Stocke that the White Chronicles allows him to go travel back in
forks in time where an important decision has to be be made, called nodes, to right
the wrongs and re-write history, making new timelines in the process. With this
new ability, Stocke now has the important mission to do whatever he has to do
to get resolve the war and get rid of the continent of the deadly plague before
it’s too late.
On the surface, Radiant Historia looks like a typical JRPG.
The protagonist leads the team and they battle enemies, earn XP, level up, earn
gold, buy new stuff, rinse, and repeat. What makes this stand out from games of
the genre is its unique gameplay. You have the ability to not only travel in
time (which has been seen before in games like Chrono Trigger) but also travel
to entirely different timelines to rectify any wrong decisions in the past (which
usually end up to the protagonists getting killed) and get new abilities or
information that can then be used in the other timelines.
There are two main timelines in the game, the Standard
History and the Alternate History. These two timelines run concurrently, and
Stocke has the ability to travel to nodes on either timelines whenever he needs
to. Fortunately, character levels, money, items, and learned abilities and
information get carried over when he time travels, alleviating the possible
headache that this gameplay mechanic might bring to the player. It is up to you
to make sure that the decision that that you make is going to be the best one,
meaning Stocke and friends continue progressing through the story and not
ending up dead. If the contrary happens and the teams ends up getting
annihilated (or other negative outcomes, such as the army forces of Alistel
getting wiped out by Granorg or worse), you get transported to Historia and
face the twins where they explain to you what happened and give you the chance
to try the other decision or maybe even travel to a whole different node
altogether to maybe learn new information or ability or prevent any bad
scenarios to happen. The game’s narrative is actually linear, and you won’t be
able to proceed further with the game if you don’t follow what you are told to
do, but the time travel element gives the game a new twist as it encourages you
to think ahead.
The game has a world map, divided into separate areas like
in Super Mario Bros. 3, and each area is composed of sections connected by
different paths that you can take to reach the exit to reach the next area or
maybe even to go back to previously visited ones (some areas cannot be
accessed, depending on which node or timeline that you are in, maybe to prevent
you from wandering off unnecessarily). On any given area, enemies are visible
on the field, and you have the option to slash them to stun them and then
either ignore them completely or engage them in battle. If you decide to engage
them, the game switches to a turn-based battle screen. This is where another
unique gameplay element is shown: the enemies are arranged in a 3x3 grid, with
enemies in front having stronger attacks and those at the back having weaker
ones, and your party’s attack power against enemies is also proportional to the
position of the enemy. Stocke and friends can unleash assault attacks to push
enemies to different directions to put them in another position, and attacks
can be chained together to create combos. You can push multiple enemies into
one position, then attack them all at once. The longer the combo, the stronger
the attack, and the bigger the post-battle rewards are. In addition to these push/left/right/air assault attacks, your
characters can also learn other skills, such as elemental
(fire/frost/lightning) attacks, healing spells, and other buff/debuff spells. The
enemies can also unleash some attacks some devastating attacks of their own if
you don’t plan ahead. The order of turns for every character and enemy is shown
during battles, and with that info, you can plan you next combo attacks. You
can even exchange turns of your party members to maximize the available skills
that each one has to give you the best advantage. In addition to these skills,
your characters will also be able to perform Mana Blast skills. Each one has a
different Mana Blast Skills, such as Stocke being able to hit all enemies
multiple times at once or Raynie being able to unleash powerful fire attacks. A
Mana Blast bar is filled gradually after each move, and when the bar is full,
that is the time to unleash them.
New to this version of Radiant Historia are the Support
Attacks. They are performed by party members who are currently not part of the
active lineup (only 3 characters are active in the party at any given time and
those who are sidelined only get a fraction of the XP points gained in battle)
against enemies. These Support Attacks are triggered at random, and characters
learn new Support Attacks as they level up.
If you want to take a break from the main story, you may go
to back to Historia and jump into the Vault of Time, an extra dungeon added to
the 3DS version. Here, you can explore many floors of interconnected areas that
are filled with enemies. The higher you go, the more powerful the enemies are.
While you are in the Vault of Time, you will not be able to use any items in
your inventory, so you can only last in this area for as long as your currently
available health or MP can allow you. You also don’t earn any monetary rewards,
but you will earn Mementos after defeating enemeis, which you can use to trade
for items, weapons, armor, and accessories. Some of these can only be found in
the Vault of Time, so you will need tackle this extra dungeon if you are a completionist.
Of course, you still earn XP and also get some rare items dropped by defeated
monsters, so if you want to grind without having to run into story elements,
this is a good place to do it.
Another addition to this game is the character Nemesia, with
her airship, the Dunamis. She provides a third parallel timeline called the
Possible Histories. These are side quests that Stocke can tackle alongside the
two main timelines. These Possible Histories act as alternate scenarios and
will require you to have a thorough knowledge of the different nodes that you
have encountered so far in the game, as you will be required to collect
different items, information, or abilities to resolve them. Resolving a PH side
quest grants you monetary rewards as well as Artifacts that Nemesia can use to
stop the desertification of the continent. This additional content can either
be activated at the start of the game (perfect mode) or after you beat the game
(append mode). Also, a new Hard difficulty is provided to those who seek a more
challenging way to play the game, ideally for those who have played the
original.
To fully complement the visuals and gameplay, the game’s
excellent soundtrack really does the job well. Composed by Yoko Shimomura (who
also composed the music for Super Mario RPG and its spiritual successors of
Mario & Luigi games, among many others), the music is really top-notch all
throughout and doesn’t need any overhaul. In addition to this, voice acting is
now included in the game, enhancing most cut scenes that include dialogues between
characters. Main characters’ lines are fully voiced, while less significant
NPCs only provide a few voiced lines or even grunts, similar to Fire Emblem:
Awakening. Cut scenes can either be set to auto, meaning you don’t have to
press A after a character is done talking and just watch the conversations
unfold. You can also fast forward them if you don’t want to listen to the
characters at all or again (if you are replaying a scenario).
The 3DS maybe already in its twilight, but Radiant Historia:
Perfect Chronology comes just in time to still provide a superb gaming
experience like many other 3DS games have done in the past. For the likes of me
who have not played the original game, this a perfect opportunity to do so, as
this game is indeed one of the best to have been released for the DS, and now,
also for the 3DS. If you still haven’t fully Switch’d, bring out your 3DS again
and play this game and be part of a radiant history.
REPLAY VALUE:
high
PROS:
- Excellent narrative style that involve time travel to different nodes and timelines
- Unique gameplay during battles, with enemies arranged on a 3x3 grid and can be manipulated for the protagonist to unleash combos
- Retains the look and feel of the original DS game and is only enhanced slightly for the 3DS
- Very good voice acting
- Awesome soundtrack
- Likeable characters with very good character design
- Party members can be customized with weapons, armors, and accessories to improve their attack, defense, and other stats
- The new game contents are a welcome addition to the original game, making this game the definitive version of Radiant Historia
CONS:
- Not in stereoscopic 3D. It’s not game breaking at all and the game still looks really good without it, but since the game is on the 3DS, I think the 3D effect would have enhanced the visuals much more
RATING: 5/5
Stocke and exploding barrels
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