Radiata Stories

[eastyy]

Played this for around 5hrs so far.Seems pretty good made by the same people who did star ocean.Combat seems watered down from that though.You have guard button a attack button and a more powerful attack which cost you points (you build up points by using the basic attack).You can get extras moves for you chain combos.But a bit like the Sp in star ocean you have to balance it.For example a weapon would give you say 6 points for a chain combo each move costs a certain amount of points a basic attack would only take one while more powerful would be 3 or higher.Its nowhere as indepth as star ocean (so far) but its quite fun unfortunetly unlike star ocean if your main character dies its game over.There is quite a bit to explore and quite a few characters to get in your party.

Two things that really have annoyed me so far one the amount of cutscenes are really annoying you can speed them up but you cannot skip them.Second thing i spent ages wandering around the castle trying to get the story to continue (i was not allowed to leave the castle) i talked to everyone and thought i went everywhere.Until i found a dungeon and a cutscene took place but it took a long time before if found that.
Graphics i thought were very good smooth and detailed reminded me a bit of dark cloud 2 and kingdom hearts

Seems a good game but i hope it starts to open out a bit soon
And what is it with Square and there moody arrogant "i dont care " main characters?

[Prof Frink]

Being playing this myself the good news is the game does open up after your second mission for the knights the game then becomes more like FF: Tactics on the GBA were you take missions from people and the mission are ranked in difficulty you also can go anywhere on the map you wish. You then also start recruiting characters ala suikoden theirs 177 in total. So far the games good but the combat is a little simple although does get better as you get further into the game once you can give commands and you get links. The graphics are lovely (the game has 16:9 and progressive scan as well) the voice acting is good the cutscenes don't bother me as the dialogue is fairly decent and the story isn't to serious which makes a nice change. The only problem i've got with it is the lack of save points while on missions you can go a long time before you get to another save point so stock up on items and get a healer.

[eastyy]

Yes agree about the save points they are to far apart.
Really glad that i found out about those teleporter statues to saves a tremendous amount of wandering around

Its a good game just it does nothing much wrong but it does not excel in much either

[Chief H]

Mm, a real charmer of a game with a couple niggling flaws, as you say. The controls have also been slightly b0rked in the process of retaining the American RPG standard of X=confirm and Circle=cancel. In Japan it's the other way round and so now you have to press circle to talk to someone and then x to continue talking. An annoyance that really should've been avoided.

I haven't been able to get the prog scan working on mine. I press triangle and x on the screen menu as it instructs but the game still plays in interlaced. Has anyone else had any issues with this?

[Prof Frink]

I haven't been able to get the prog scan working on mine. I press triangle and x on the screen menu as it instructs but the game still plays in interlaced. Has anyone else had any issues with this?

Hold down Triangle and X when the playstation 2 logo appears and wait until the prog scan menu appears, works for me.

[Chief H]

Ahhh, now I see. doh. Cheers dude

[k0pp0]

Any sign of thermal valves or inhibitors yet?

[Chief H]

Mm yes, I'm warming to it all nicely, in fact.




(old gag stolen shamelessly from Staff Discussion)

[eastyy]

Put around 10hrs into the game now
Improving as it goes on completed several quests and recruited a few characters.I really like the day-night cycle ala shenmue.

->Open Spoiler<-

keep and eye out near the goblin site for a gold creature gives 8888 gold (no exp though) best place to level up where i am in the game is the goblin graveyard plenty of exp there

[dreamylittledream]

The day night theme is really well done - after a while you learn where characters will be hanging at at any given time.

I found the non linear approach a little bewildering at first - radiata city on its own is huge and there is shed loads to wander around. Played a couple of hours last night and did little more then a guided tour of the city.

The style and story is very ToS to me - unlike most square games its actively mocking the usual RPG precepts. Found it laugh out loud funny in places too...

[eastyy]

Right completed the game

Overall a fun game but it feels like a game i probably wont play much of again

Oh and here is a rant

->Open Spoiler<-

What is it with games and there rubbish endings i mean when you have a genre like rpg's the story is crucial as is the cutscenes to present the story.Then after 20hr+ of playing they reward you with either a ending that leaves the story unfinished (whic frustrates me) or its so short.Here its both i doubt the actual ending laster more than 1 min

[Chief H]

I've kind of fallen away from this game after some early excitement. I ofund the battle system to not quite be exciting enough to last out repeated use. Or more specifically, it's annoying to face larger enemies that have lots of unbreakable, high-priority attacks. Like fighting the two-horned rhinos i had to literaly do them one hit at a time else they'd just attack me (not even bothering to counter, the cheeky sods), which isn't much fun.

I've also found that, for a Japanese game, there is very little guidance in the game, particularly in recruiting. Even on missions, the game often leaves you very open-ended, with few clues on what to do next, which can be a problem if you put the game down for a few days. And with no real way to keep a track of what tasks and errand to run (there's no Majora's Mask-esque diary that i can find) it all becomes a bit silly.

Doesn't stop this game being as charming as ever, but it really dulls its performance

[eastyy]

It feels like to me a playthrough once type of game.

->Open Spoiler<-

I had a save before you take either the humans or inhumans side i will probably go throught that

but then i think the game will be on my sell list

[Chief H]

Mm, I agree with you on that one. I thought the recruitment would give it a very healthy lifespan but the it doesn't really play up the factor enough - the effort and coordination required is high (sometimes it ends up satisfying but a number of the necessary routines feel over-convoluted for the sake of being awkward) and the rewards aren't greatly significant. Which is a shame when a similar recruitment principal worked so much better in Valkyrie Profile when those two aspects worked the other way around. But then again maybe that's just a sign of how great Valkyrie Profile is rather than how bad Radiata Stories seems to be, as it isn't all that terrible. Just not overly engaging.

[eastyy]

The ending did not help either