Review: Radiant Historia (2011)

• May 30, 2014
• James Skemp
• gaming, review

Fantastic music and interesting branching story

When I ordered Radiant Historia back in February 2013 I'll readily admit that I played for only a few hours before I let it, and my 3DS, sit and gather dust. At the time the cheapest new copy of the game I could get was $70, so I was expecting much more from the game.

However, a few months ago, after finishing Ghost Trick, I decided to give Radiant Historia another chance. And now here I am, a little over a year and a quarter from when I first picked the game up, writing a review, having just finished it a few hours ago.

I don't exactly recall what caused me to put the game down, but having now gone through the game I think it may just been the wrong time for me, as both the story and music - two of the major reasons I typically enjoy RPGs over all other genres - are pretty dang good.

The musical score at times reminds me of Final Fantasy VI, Nier, and Lost Odyssey. The branching storyline reminds me of Chrono Trigger (albeit it's definitely not as complex). The character art reminds me of Blue Dragon (or maybe just Raynie reminds me strongly of Zola).

The gameplay is perhaps the one slightly insignificant aspect, as while it does feature some complexity when it comes to moving the location of enemies on the 3x3 grid they inhabit, I found myself using 4 characters (including the main one who can't be swapped out) for most of the endgame, depending upon who I had access to in the storyline.

In short, I found the game to be really quite good, once I was able to really get into it. However, I'm not sure how much of the 40+ hours I put into the game will stick with me down the road, especially given the fairly safe ending.

I give Radiant Historia 4 of 5 stars, primarily because of the great music and story/mission structure.

• review
• nintendo ds