So this is a long shot, but... I'm in Europe, and most import shops seem to be out of stock. It's in stock on Amazon US though, but if I order from them I'll have to pay the Swedish 25% sales tax :/ So my question is, is there a kind-hearted GAF:er out there who could perhaps order this game to themselves, and then send it to me privately in order to avoid the sales tax? Of course I'd pay you in advance, and because of this I'd prefer a well-known GAF:er or someone who's made business with others in the buy/sell thread or similar. If anyone wants to do this I'd be very grateful indeed!
edit: I tried putting RH in my cart on Amazon.com, and it won't even let me buy it. Says that it can't be shipped to Sweden. So that option's out.
This game came back down to a reasonable price on amazon, was $50 for a while which I guess were just private sellers. Anyway, back to $35 so I bought.
Just bought mine on Amazon too. Says it ships in two to four weeks, it better fucking not! I need it this weekend so my virgin self can lay in my bed and play it.
Yep, and it was also implied on their forums that this second print run will be limited as well.
I don't know what the hell Atlus is doing... I guess they don't want to over-produce too many copies of RH seeing as how the DS is nearing its end. (?)
It's what they usually do, I think. It seems as though they usually run low prints of niche games (and I'll admit, it's a niche title) so it could be profitable and "successful". The only game that seemed to be the exception to that was Demon's Souls.
Kinda sucks, because I think this game is a must-play, especially for retro RPG fans.
Just bought mine on Amazon too. Says it ships in two to four weeks, it better fucking not! I need it this weekend so my virgin self can lay in my bed and play it.
Considering this game came from a team comprised of people who worked on a series I liked (Persona) and a series I loved (EO), I figured I'd enjoy this
But seems its one of those games that is incredibly padded with brain-numbing chatter. I've been playing 2.5 hours. I'll give it maybe another 2.
Well then, if you're an Atlus/RPG fan I can't really see how you think this game is THAT text heavy. If anything, there is literally no filler in this game. All of the sidequests are basically two lines of dialogue and can be done/revisited at any time so you could just progress the main plot the whole time without being sidetracked. There are two plots going on at the same time, so MAYBE I can see how that might be a bit story heavy. But honestly, for a handheld game, this is the perfect amount of story/gameplay in my opinion.
Considering this game came from a team comprised of people who worked on a series I liked (Persona) and a series I loved (EO), I figured I'd enjoy this
But seems its one of those games that is incredibly padded with brain-numbing chatter. I've been playing 2.5 hours. I'll give it maybe another 2.
You can skip the dialogue by pressing Start or holding down X to FF through the dialogue, even if you haven't sat through the scene before. Your next objective is usually shown on the top screen if you do skip.
But outside of that, the game isn't that text-heavy, imo. Do you like the battle system?
Considering this game came from a team comprised of people who worked on a series I liked (Persona) and a series I loved (EO), I figured I'd enjoy this
But seems its one of those games that is incredibly padded with brain-numbing chatter. I've been playing 2.5 hours. I'll give it maybe another 2.
Any amount of investigation before buying this game should have told you how narrative-heavy it was - this isn't a plotless dungeon crawler like EO but an adventure-RPG hybrid with a neat time travel concept. I think it's pretty well written and enjoy Stocke as a protagonist. As mentioned, if you really hate the dialogue you can always press Start to skip cutscenes. You're really missing out if you do that though - if you don't like to read in games, this is probably not for you.
Stocke (Lv 70), Aht (Lv 65) and Eruca (Lv 61). They have the highest MAG defense. I had some Shield Seed Pluses in my inventory. I equipped everyone with three Sky Drops, which will prevent status effects. You can buy these in Forgia. I filled up everyone's Mana Gauge prior to engaging. MDEF is the biggest worry here. Forget about bringing up PDEF.
Stocke: Historica, Moirae Manteau (DEF+48;MDEF+41--"The Road to Victory" sidequest), 3 Sky Drops (you can substitute the Satyros Finery for the Manteau if you want to here)
Aht: Oratorio (ATK+25/MAG+30/MDF+20--steal from Thautomaton Boss at Sand Fortress in AH Chapter 5), Mana Cape (DEF+21/MDF+68/SPD-3--Underground Lab), 3 Sky Drops
Eruca: Freikugel Mercy (ATK+25/MAG+90/DEF-15--treasure in Imperial Ruins AH Final Chapter), Luminous Dress (DEF+21/MDF+70/SPD-2--Royal Hall, SH Final Chapter), 3 Sky Drops
I used the Mana Gauge and had everyone Turn Break the spider. Comboed the spider into submission with Dancing Death, G-Fire, G-Frost, Dancing Death, Double Slash, G-Frost... repeatedly until it goes down. It shouldn't get an attack in since you used Turn Break. It's kind of important that you don't get damaged during this battle because the next battle's going to be tough.
If Vainqueur does what I think he's going to do first, he'll either use: a ton of spells on you, try to put your party to sleep, or try to lower your stats. The Sky Drops were equipped to counter this, but it still doesn't help much. I used Polaris and Lunatic with Aht, and a Shield Seed Plus on my first turn (Eruca has Trans-Turn). I decided to take them out one at a time with Dancing Death, Double Slash and G-Frost repeatedly to kill one of them, or you could use G-Frost + any of Aht's Star traps + left/right assault. Don't be afraid of using Tourniquets, Healing Fruits (you can buy these in Forgia), or multiple Shield Seeds Pluses (Shield Herbs also help) if Eruca's Divine Light isn't keeping up. It would also help a little if you used a Magic Herb on Eruca. Either way is fine. It's more of a battle of endurance if anything.
This battle is harder than the final battle. I hope that helps, but I'm sure people have done it differently and more efficiently. The most important thing is leveling up Eruca, imo. I attempted this battle multiple times with an underleveled Eruca and was extremely unsuccessful.
It was a great weekend. Platinumed FF13, almost finished a second playthrough of Tales of Graces f (Gentlemen's Quest...), and beat this sucker last night!
236/236. Stocke Lv 75, with everyone else slightly below him. Final boss was a cakewalk, especially when compared to
Master Vainqueur
. I used Stocke, Gafka and Marco for ultimate power, healing, buffing, turn panel deletion and chaining.
Ending spoilers:
Does it matter which name you pick in the end? I had to ponder it, but in the end, I had them call Stocke "Stocke". It only seemed fitting after his whole speech to Heiss about giving him a new life as "Stocke". I liked how they slowly revealed him as Ernst, but it became really obvious once you met Eruca for the first time.
I'm tired, so I'll make final impressions brief.
It's a great game, a wonderful homage to RPGs of old (and thus, in a way, refreshing). Narrative gets a little iffy towards the end, but that's to be expected in JRPGs, I think. There were some slight spelling and grammatical errors in the text (some errors were a little glaring like misspelling Stocke's name in some of the timeline summaries, but it's not like the general RPG player would notice it). Stocke is a great protagonist, and didn't do anything that made me roll my eyes or sigh in frustration, something that feels like a rarity in recent JRPGs. He didn't necessarily "develop", but instead more of his multifaceted personality was revealed to the player as a way of showing "development". It was nice.
If you've heard of Radiant Historia, the first thing you probably heard about it was that it had a "Chrono Trigger element" of time travel. It's not as free as CT's time travel, though (ie: go anywhere in 12 000 BC, go anywhere in 600 AD, etc). The timeline works in such a fashion that there are "events" and "nodes" that symbolize various points in time that your characters have been through. The only places that you can time travel to are the nodes, which are usually either the beginning of chapters, near the end of chapters, or at a crucial point in the chapter. If you are doing sidequests, you will have to travel back to one of these nodes (but sometimes, you'll have to play through an entire segment of a chapter in order to get to the sidequest area, which is a bit of a pain sometimes).
At this point, you might be asking, "If time-travel nodes are at the beginning of chapters or at crucial plot points, then wouldn't you be forced to watch cutscenes and scroll through dialogue you've seen before?" Luckily, no. You can fast-forward through the text you've already seen with X, or you can just press the Start button to skip the dialogue scene altogether! Very convenient.
This game also has multiple endings: there are bad, good and true endings. If you meet a bad end (even the sidequests have bad ends), it's not the end for you. You just have to go back and make the "right" decision. The true ending is achieved by doing 10 particular sidequests. The best part of this game is that nothing is missable. You can still venture back and forth in time to see what you've missed or what you've yet to accomplish in both past and present. A caution: sidequests aren't explicitly marked. You may have to ask other RH players if there are sidequests in a certain chapter, or you may have to follow a FAQ.
Also, there is no quicksave. Save points are very plentiful in the game, but sometimes when you do grind and are nowhere near a save point when you need to do something else, it feels like an oversight. It's just a small complaint, though. Doesn't bear a ton on the game itself.
Radiant Historia's refreshing nature, however, truly comes from the battle system. It's sheer proof that a game does not need elaborate smoke and mirrors, or "complicated-looking" level up systems. It relies on simplicity with a minor tweak. The battle system is a great take on turn-based combat. It never gets boring. Enemies can be pushed and pulled in different directions on a 3x3 grid. Enemy position is rather important: if they are in the front row, they will do more damage to your party. If they are in the back, they'll do less damage. What is the best way to maximize your results in battle is to bunch up the enemies on one area of the grid and combo them with your characters. Enemy and ally turn order is shown on the top screen, and you have the ability to swap turns with either foe or friend to maximize the effects of your combo. Characters will also obtain a sort of "limit break gauge", and have an inventory of three skills to use it up.
Characters gain skills as they level up, and all playable characters gain XP even if they're not in-battle. The encounter rate is good, and there are no random battles. All enemies can be seen on the screen. Stocke also has the ability to hit an enemy to knock it out and then engage it for a pre-emptive strike. Or he could just knock it out and not fight it. The choice is up to you. Sometimes this mechanic is a little imprecise, but when it works, it feels great to get that jump on your enemy.
As for the soundtrack, I don't really like Shimomura's stuff outside of her Street Fighter II and other SNES music and her Last Ranker score, but this is one I really really enjoyed (despite hearing the same tracks ad nauseam). It's one of the better scores on the DS (outmatched by Masashi Hamauzu's Sigma Harmonics score, Toshihiko Horiyama's Apollo Justice score, Yuzo Koshiro's 7th Dragon score, and Takeharu Ishimoto's The World Ends With You score). However, The soundtrack is too short; 25 tracks doesn't seem like enough for this game, especially when you consider that SNES games had scores that spanned 3 CDs. Hearing the same music repeatedly at some points wasn't really tiresome, but more like, "Eh, I heard this already" and didn't have much of an impact. Shame that the World Map theme is used as the field theme in a TON of places (also I didn't really like it that much).
When I first heard of Radiant Historia, I figured it'd be like Chrono Trigger through-and-through. While this is true to an extent, I found myself looking for other games I loved dearly in past console generations. I found Final Fantasy VI (steampunk), Final Fantasy Tactics (politics), Suikoden (war, friendship and rebellion) and Tactics Ogre (rebellion) in this. I appreciated what it had to offer, and it certainly deserves a place in any JRPG player's library.
Pros:
+nice narrative
+feels like an homage to RPGs of yore
+great music
+freakin' fun battle system
+depth in simplicity
+can skip cutscenes
+no random battles
Cons:
-soundtrack too short
-no quicksave
-nodes sometimes not placed in convenient places
In-betweens:
-some may consider this game to be very text-heavy
You can skip the dialogue by pressing Start or holding down X to FF through the dialogue, even if you haven't sat through the scene before. Your next objective is usually shown on the top screen if you do skip.
But outside of that, the game isn't that text-heavy, imo. Do you like the battle system?
Love it. As long as the difficulty keeps ramping up. I'm still early in.
I like most of the game. I like the pixel art. Character art is hit or miss. I don't care much for the main character's art, but some are v. good. Music is nice. The world seems pretty decent. But arg the characters are so bland. And they keep talking about mundane stuff. Nothing in the story is hooking me. And I do in fact generally like narrative in my games.
I didn't even think that you didn't know about how to skip the cutscenes. (Do people not read manuals anymore?) Obviously that cuts down on the amount of text and you're not supposed to watch every cutscene over and over again. Two presses of start and you're usually at the gameplay part.
The battle system is very fun at first but I feel gets a little tedious when there are a ton of enemies on the grid and it takes multiple 3+ people combos to kill anything quickly. Marco's turn change spell is definitely a godsend.
Nope! Well, only when a system is a little to complex to grasp on my own.
Yeah, it's bad enough I had to sit through the dialog once. Making me see it multiple times was ridiculous. I was holding down X the first time, and each subsequent time. Now, I'm going to Start right through!
Seriously, the last game I played with dialog this bad was Summon Night 2!!! (And what a horrible game that was )
Nope! Well, only when a system is a little to complex to grasp on my own.
Yeah, it's bad enough I had to sit through the dialog once. Making me see it multiple times was ridiculous. I was holding down X the first time, and each subsequent time. Now, I'm going to Start right through!
Seriously, the last game I played with dialog this bad was Summon Night 2!!! (And what a horrible game that was )
No prob about the Start thing. It isn't explicitly stated in-game. A few reviewers had that issue too, apparently.
I thought the dialogue was fine and well-written in a lot of places, but that's just me. The game is about war, recon/spying missions and whatnot at first, after all... unless you're not really into that stuff. The narrative picks up a ton after AH Chapter 2, imo. Chapter 1 was okay in comparison to the later chapters. The Prologue was pretty cool. Some people might say it picks up earlier than that.
It's great that you're enjoying everything else.
KAL2006 said:
Nice I'm going to have to pick this up, I am going to play this first before the new Legend of Heroes as the game is shorter than Legend of Heroes
This game came back down to a reasonable price on amazon, was $50 for a while which I guess were just private sellers. Anyway, back to $35 so I bought.
I seriously, like, saw this TWO days ago for the $35 price on Amazon and made a mental note go buy it before it went up again. Sure enough the cheapest on there was $59 today. I'm so mad I didn't do it as soon as I saw it. Never again will I wait a day or so!
When is this second print happening again? This month? Goodness.
I seriously, like, saw this TWO days ago for the $35 price on Amazon and made a mental note go buy it before it went up again. Sure enough the cheapest on there was $59 today. I'm so mad I didn't do it as soon as I saw it. Never again will I wait a day or so!
When is this second print happening again? This month? Goodness.
I added this into my cart for $35 but didn't follow through with the transaction and now it's gone.
It said it would ship in 2-4 weeks which makes me think Amazon doesn't have them in stock; I hope this doesn't mean their entire shipment has been completely reserved.
I'm gonna take a break from this for now. I've only put in about six hours(
just got to Granorg
) but I'm just not feeling it all that much. There are alot of interesting elements, but the story, pacing and music are all very underwhelming so far. The main character is interesting, but the other characters are not to the extent that I've played. The battle system has also gotten very repetitive for me. I'll probably go back to it later and give it another shot, but it's not what I expected based on the glowing impressions that everyone here has given it.
Nope, but you did avoid all the inflated costs surrounding the game.
Also, just for the record, mine is listed as shipping soon on Amazon! You can also get this game for ~$35 (+5 shipping) through a 3rd party vendor on Amazon, which is cheaper than the $50/$60 at most other places.
I ended up canceling my Amazon order. One of my local Gamestop's had a copy. It was gutted but since it came with a cardboard box/soundtrack, the only thing on display was the outer packing. The game was still sealed.
Since I was hoping to avoid any difficulty I went and picked it up on my way to work. Only one GameStop in a deserted mall a few miles out of the way had one. I see it's up on Amazon now, but it was a fun little adventure and I love what I've played so far.
I'm hoping my Amazon copy that's shipping today has the CD and isn't the reprint, but if so it's not huge loss. I'm more concerned with having the game at all at this point.
I want to play this game so bad. I ordered from Amazon on Monday when the price went back down to $35, but my order is still in limbo. I can't believe I have not heard of this game until it was too late to pre-order, and was near impossible to find in my area. I'm hoping Amazon gets a few copies in before the 4/27 - 5/2 date they have scheduled.
Quick question though for those that have the game. How is the length of the game?
EDIT: Thank you so much for that Buy.com link. I just placed my order! I can't wait to give this game a go.
Lol, oh what the hell. I just re-ordered from Amazon, because I have Prime's free 2-day shipping. My desperation for this game is beginning to feel a bit ridiculous, haha. Oh well, I'm sure it will be well worth it when it's all said and done.
I took 45 hours but I did a ton of grinding while trying to get rare drops. It'll probably take the average player 30/35-40 hours depending on if they complete all sidequests or not.
Jimmy Stav said:
So is this a pretty safe bet for scratching the itch I've been having for an old-school RPG? I'm not asking for anything innovative.
IMO, most likely--you can also try for Dragon Quest 4, 5, 6 and/or 9 on DS for a true old-school experience. Also, Chrono Trigger DS if you haven't played it already.
You can also go for Crimson Gem Saga, Hexyz Force or Brave Story on PSP if you have one.
Awesome! My Amazon order shipped today, and I should have it on Monday. I absolutely can't wait to finally play this game.
Dark Schala said:
I took 45 hours but I did a ton of grinding while trying to get rare drops. It'll probably take the average player 30/35-40 hours depending on if they complete all sidequests or not.
Thanks for the response! I'm a sucker for side-quests, so I'm happy to see they'll be there to lengthen the experience. Also, 45 hours sounds like the perfect length, and since I have a road trip coming up this will be perfect to help pass some time.
Thanks for the response! I'm a sucker for side-quests, so I'm happy to see they'll be there to lengthen the experience. Also, 45 hours sounds like the perfect length, and since I have a road trip coming up this will be perfect to help pass some time.
No prob--as I said, I only took that long because I was trying to grind and find rare weapons, plus I did all sidequests. More people will probably go 35-40 hours depending on how they pace themselves.
If you're planning on doing sidequests, I recommend using a FAQ, or printing something off and keeping it with you. The sidequest markers are not obvious, and it can be a bit cumbersome to do all of them in one go.
