Radiant Historia: Undoing Death

Two children stare over an ocean of sand. They discuss their failure to save the world. One of many failures. Melancholic, but determined, the children decide to start again in hopes of preventing yet another disaster.

This is the chilling opening of Radiant Historia, a Japanese role-playing game from the folks at Atlus. Players are tasked with saving the world by traveling back and forth through time to alter the fate of two warring kingdoms. The hero of the story, Stocke, must continue to sift through time to find "the way history was meant to unfold." No easy task, I can assure you.

World-ending tragedies aside, Stocke has more immediate problems to deal with. He's a member of the Special Intelligence division in the kingdom of Alistel. This kingdom is at war with Granorg, which is being run by a tyrannical queen. Stocke has been tasked with rescuing a spy that has important information on Granorg's armaments. Two mercenaries, Raynie and Marco, are assigned to assist him.

Before Stocke can embark on his mission, his superior gives him a special book called the White Chronicle. As it turns out, this book gives Stocke the ability to see through time. He witnesses the deaths of Raynie and Marco, which soon come to fruition as their mission goes sour. Miraculously, the enigmatic children from the beginning of the game reappear and allow Stocke to travel back in time to save Raynie and Marco. But these mysterious events are just the beginning of our hero's adventure.

The battle system here is all about getting your enemies lined up.
In Radiant Historia, players guide Stocke and his team as they fight for Alistel. Like many other DS RPGs, the characters are portrayed as 2D sprites while the environments are 3D models. This gives the visuals a simple, old-school feel -- a little poorly animated but not without charm. When exploring dungeons, enemies will appear on screen. Stocke can approach an enemy and slash it with his sword in order to render it unconscious. When a battle is initiated with an unconscious enemy, the player's party has the advantage.

During battle, some things felt very familiar to me while other things were new. The most recognizable trait of the Radiant Historia battle system is its turn-based structure. Upcoming turns are listed on the top screen, allowing players to oversee the flow of battle. Players can have up to three members in their party at one time. These party members are lined up on the right side of the bottom screen. On the left side of that screen, the enemies appear on a three by three grid.

Battles in Radiant Historia are all about enemy placement. The closer the enemies get to the player's party on that grid, the more damage they do. It's in the player's best interest to keep enemies at bay while attacking. This is done by executing special attacks that can move enemies around on the grid. Stocke's Push Assault ability, for example, forces the enemy to the back of the grid. Left Assault, as another example, pushes them to the left.

By using special techniques, players can group several enemies on one grid space, and then attack them all at once. By chaining different attacks together, players can dispatch an entire group of baddies in just one chain by grouping them up and knocking them down. Players can make even bigger combos by switching a character's turn with another character or enemy, so the player's party takes several turns in a row.

This system was instantly appealing to me, due to its accessibility. It provided just enough challenge and depth to keep the fights interesting, but it only took minutes to get the action up and running.

At the beginning of the game, Stocke's party is fairly weak so the skills available are limited. But after just a few levels gained, I was already casting spells and manipulating enemy positioning like it was my job. I can just imagine how fun it will be to chain together massive combos at the end of the game.

Radiant Historia is due out on February 22nd exclusively for the Nintendo DS.

IGN.com

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