One day I was looking for a new game to get and I came across Radiant Historia. I have played games by Altus like Luminous Arc and thought if Radiant Historia was made by the same company that it might be fun so I decided to try it. The first time I played it I was having a lot of fun and didn't want to put it down. To find out why this game is so fun and hard to put down keep reading this review.

Story

The story starts out talking about how this strange phenomenon called desertification that had destroyed the old Empire a long time ago is now starting to slowly creep toward the rest of the continent. The increasing desertification has left the nations that remain in fierce conflict over the little bit of soil left that can be cultivated. The nation of Alistel which is on the east side of the continent is currently dealing with an invasion from the nation of Granorg to the west. The main character of this story is an Alistellian intelligence officer named Stocke and at the start of the story is about to be sent on a very important mission. He is joined by 2 subordinates that he was ordered to take with him, their names are Raynie and Marco. Also Stocke was given a book with empty pages before he went off to his mission at the time he was just told that it was for good luck. Eventually he finds out that it is called the White Chronicle that allows him to Historia which is a mysterious place that is beyond life and death. It is in Historia he meets Teo and Lippti who are enigmatic twins who watch over Historia, which is also called the nexus of time. Stocke learns that with the White Chronicle he can travel to Historia and he can travel back to the past to change it. This meaning you can rewrite history the way it is supposed to be...

Gameplay

In Radiant Historia there is actually two separate storylines, one is the "Standard History" and the other is the "Alternate History." At first the story is the same and only one timeline then at one point you will have to make an important decision and that is where the story will split. Using the White Chronicle you will have to travel between both timelines to advance forward, there will be times that you will have to go back and forth between timelines to get past a certain road block. The way the game flows is that you travel from place to place via the world map where you select the place you want to go. Then you end up on the field which is the towns and areas you explore, talk to people and fight enemies. There are no random encounters in this game enemies are shown on field and you have to run into them to engage in a battle. The battle system in Radiant Historia uses a Grid System, where the strategy constantly changes depending on where the enemies are positioned and the order of turns.During a battle the top screen shows the Turn Panel which shows what order the characters and enemies that are in the battle will act. At the bottom of the bottom screen is where the status of the character's in the battle are shown. The characters and enemies are positioned on separate panels on the grid system and depending on which panel the enemies are located the damage can vary and different tactics have to be used.With the Grid System enemies appear on a 3x3 grid and some enemies only take up one space but others are large and take up multiple spaces. Like mentioned above the position of the enemy causes damage to be varied, for example an enemy on the front line will do more damage to you versus a enemy on the rear line. Using certain skills you will be able to push mobs back, to either side or pull them forward. The battle system for the most part is very easy to learn and it doesn't take that much to come up with good strategies to defeat your enemies easily. An example strategy would be to push an enemy back to the back row where other enemies are so the next character could use a move that hits all the enemies and possibly kill them.

Now I am going to talk about the Camp Menu which is where you can check your items, equip new weapons or armor and examine your skills etc. You can access the Camp Menu by pressing the X button. The options on the Camp Menu include: Item, Equip, Skill, Party, Stats and Story. The item option is of course where you can view or use any of the items you have obtained. The items are organized into different categories and you can switch to another category by pressing left or right on the control pad. The next option is Equip which is where you can equip any new weapons, armor or accessories you have obtained. Each character can equip a weapon, armor and up to 3 accessories at a time. You press left or right on the control pad to switch between the different equipment slots. The next option is Skill where you can use skills that can be used outside of battle which is usually only healing skills and those are the only skills that will be showed here. The next option is Party which is where you can assign which characters where participate in battles. Only 3 characters can be used in a battle and one of them has to be Stocke. The second to last option is Stats which is where you can view the stats of each of your characters. The last option is Story which opens the White Chronicle where you can view the timeline map.

Next I am going to talk more about the White Chronicle and the timeline map.In order to access Historia and travel through time you have to first find a Time Node which is located in certain places in the field. When you talk to a Time Node you will have the options to Save, Go to Historia or Recover which uses a Mana Crystal that you can collect on the field throughout the game that recovers everyone's HP and MP. When you go into Historia via a Time Node you can open the White Chronicle to view a map of the timeline for you to move through time. While in the timeline map you use the control pad to move the cursor and scroll through the timeline. By pressing the Y button you can scroll through the event synopses and of course you would press the A button to select a certain event node to travel in time to that certain event.

In most towns you will have a Weapon Shop and Item Shop where you can buy equipment and items for your characters. There are also usually Inns in towns where you can rest and recover your characters HP and MP

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in this game are pretty decent for a Nintendo DS game and the world is very colorful. The graphics may not be the greatest but you really aren't going to get amazing graphics with a Nintendo DS game. The music in this game is nice to listen to but it is really not that memorable where you can remember it after not playing for a while and you probably wouldn't get the music stuck in your head.

Overall Radiant Historia is a fun game that has nice music and graphics and will keep you playing for a long while.

Recommended: Yes