Radiata Stories

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $14.68

Features:

• Features real-time action with characters moving freely on the battle map while attacking
• New Link system allows players to determine formation for their characters
• Build up your strength on the Bolty meter, which allows players to execute special actions and super attacks
• An incredible 300 NPCs will be available, all with their own personalities -- more than 150 of them will be recruitable into your party

Accessories:
PlayStation: The Official Magazine (1-year)	Electronic Gaming Monthly	Play	Tips & Tricks Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Standard RPG with a Few Unique Quirks [Posted on 2008-01-19]
This review is written by James Shea, my son.

A charming PS2 with a lot of unique touches, Radiata Stories is in many ways a standard RPG but distinguishes itself in many ways as well.

The story follows Jack Russell (as in, the terrier), an enthusiastic young knight, as he negotiates the treacherous path carved out by his profession. The early parts of the game follow his unit, the Rose Cochon (pink pig) brigade, as it takes missions to protect the humans' alliances with the other races of their world. The story doesn't really develop until later in the game, when Jack is forced to choose an alliance that will dictate the entire rest of the game. The game's main virtue, in terms of story, is the wide variety of characters that it has - 175 in all, similar in scale only to the Suikoden games. Depending on the path chosen, different characters can be gained.

The gameplay is a cross between standard RPGs (encounters lead to mini-arenas where enemies are fought, just like most other RPGs) and action RPGs like Kingdom Hearts (the action is real-time, and the player must attack and dodge with the controller. The player is always Jack, who has four options: attacking, defending, using a charge attack (that takes energy gained from regular attacks to do a more powerful one), and items. His companions tend to be more diverse and have a wider array of skills and weapons. Mages, clerics, and warriors - among others - are available.

One of the neatest things about the game is the fact that the NPCs live actual lives - depending on the time, they will be at a different place and can be observed moving back and forth. Stores will be closed at night; not unusual, but unlike some others which have an arbitrary locked door and a sign, this one actually shows the shop owners heading home. One early puzzle involves getting a chest guarded by a dwarf; at 5 o'clock game time, the dwarf will head for the pub, and you are free to get the chest's contents.

Despite some darker twists in the story, the graphics are bright, colorful, and cheerful, the music is bouncy and energetic, and the characters all have light-hearted moments. Graphically, the game resembles a cross between Final Fantasy IX and Dark Cloud 2. It's cartoony and the characters are misproportioned like FF9, and the colors more resemble DC2. The voice acting is done pretty well, but can be turned off if preferred (the options are text only, text and voice, or voice only).

As a whole, this game falls into the same categories as other RPGs, but also tends to stand out on its own merits. While a lot of the game is the same old stuff, it has a few quirks to make it unique.

Rating: 8/10.

Great RPG! [Posted on 2008-03-01]
There's so many great qualities about Radiata Stories that drives me to play it over and over again savoring every moment! First of all, you have the option to recruit over 170 characters who each have a unique request you must fufill before they join you on your quest. I won't say much as to avoid spoiling anything but as you get further into the game you have to choose sides: the Human Side or the Non-Human Side. Whichever side you choose greatly affects what the ending will be like so choose wisely!

Really original and fantastic so please do a good action, buy it [Posted on 2008-03-06]
Yeah, that's right, this game is really great. It's the only rpg that i did a lot of time (except maybe shining force 2 a tactical rpg on the sega megadrive). It's simple, when you got beautiful graphics and musics, sharp controls, a pleasant story, a "living" world, and a great sense of humor, you can not really complain.
But nothing in this worls is perfect so maybe even if you can gather a lot of people in your friends list and have them in your party, you will always play the main charachter, Jack. Then, even if you can choose your side and finish the game twice, the main story itself is not very long. It took me about 80 hours to finish the game twice and recruit Lenneth Valkyrie, a hidden character, in the optionnal dungeon. And let me tell you that i'm no god of game. But it can be about 150 hours if you want to complete everything because you'll have to do the game over and over again to add everybody in your list, have the best items, and more. Plus, you do not loose your leveling when you restart the game.
But i speak too much. Still, i believe radiata stories is one of the best rpg games that the ps2 had. And when you know that it had been made by the ones who did the star ocean series and the valkyrie profile series, you just know what you have to do now...

Almost like playing an anime... [Posted on 2008-03-24]
This game is pretty good and original on SQUARE-ENIX's part. Sure, the time system can get annoying, but check out all of the stuff to do. Over 100 characters to recruit, pretty good graphics, and more. It also has an extremely large amount of voices done, basically every NPC has a voice.

If you want a fun RPG, this would be a good one to get.

ok so far [Posted on 2008-04-26]
the game is ok so far, though i stopped playing after a couple of days to play a different game i bought at the same time. as i've enjoyed the other game so much, i'll get back to this one after. but...like i said, its ok so far. graphics are different, not bad though. voices aren't the best, but what they have to say is pretty bad indeed! gameplay is ok, fighting can be frustrating at times though.

so yea, its OK so far!

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