Radiata Stories
Radiata Stories reminds me of this guy I used to date. On the surface, he was everything I could've asked for: good looking, funny, adventurous. But when I looked a little more closely, I discovered that for all his attributes, he was so intrinsically annoying and frustrating that soon just looking at him made me want to throw things across the room. I had a similar reaction to Square Enix's latest RPG, initially entranced by the gorgeous visuals and witty dialogue, I thought I'd found yet another top-notch title with which to while away the hours, but the combat system is so horrible that I couldn't wait to get it out of my PS2.
Radiata Stories starts off promisingly, albeit familiarly, enough. Our hero, the young and feisty Jack Russell (worry not, he stopped humping legs and piddling on the carpet ages ago) wants to be a knight, just like his dear old dead dad, so off he heads to the annual knight competition, dead dad's sword in tow. Of course, being the young and headstrong idiot he is, he hasn't put a lick of work into actually training to become a knight, so he is rapidly spanked by the competition. Despite this, he is accepted into the order and is soon on a quest to save the kingdom.
The plot is pretty standard fare, with the young empty-headed hero, his razor tongued female companion, and their quest to save the world from the Big Bad of the day. The writing, however, is surprisingly good, filled with wit and humor, taking fun with the characters while still making them fully realized individuals. Jack and his friends might have familiar templates as their foundations, but they're not cardboard cutouts or party-member-by-numbers. Each character has a distinct and individual personality, due in no small part to the brilliant voice work done by the cast. The dialogue is crisp and quick, and if anyone ever gets around to making Radiata Stories: The TV Show, I'll be quick to set my TiVo to record it.
Speaking of friends, Radiata Stories gives players more than just the handful of usual suspects. Tired of only having four or five party members to choose from? Well, how about 177? Throughout his adventure, Jack will be able to recruit all manner of companions as he treads from town to town, which makes the tired old "talk to everyone" game mechanic far more exciting and meaningful than it is in other RPGs, where conversation usually leads to little more than a few bad puns and maybe a side quest or two. Exploring towns is great fun, as even the background characters are well written and colorful.
Take some time from all the meeting and greeting to examine the surroundings, though, because they are a joy to behold. Radiata Stories is just plain beautiful, with muted shades and soft tones that blend together to form a warm and inviting backdrop. The characters themselves are anime-inspired without being too outrageously cartoonish or silly and come in a delightful Whitman's Sampler, from stubby little blacksmiths to tall and lanky churchmen and everything in between. One would think that 177 characters would be tough to keep track of, but the attention to detail makes each one so unique that knowing who's who is never an issue. The one big disappointment is that Jack is stuck on an extremely linear path, harshly limiting movement through the gorgeous environments. As Jack wanders down country roads, we see farmers toiling in the background, or wells that are just begging to be investigated, but they're all off limits, for display only. The glimpses we see are tantalizingly out of reach, promises of side quests and adventures never to be brought to fruition. Of course, with 177 people to pick up, I guess keeping the crew on track isn't a bad thing. The story of Radiata Stories is a bit tired, but presented well enough to keep players interested, the visuals are a delight, and the recruitment of more than one hundred characters is sure to keep things from becoming too repetitious. So what's the problem? The combat. The dreadful, boring, frustrating, poorly done combat. Fights are conducted in real time, with players taking control of Jack and AI handling the rest of the party. After a certain point in the game, Jack can issue simple commands to his teammates, such as attacking a specific enemy, or providing a specific kind of support, but the interaction between the player and the other party members is minimal. Actually, I rather enjoyed not having to monitor other characters' inventories or health during battle, as the AI took care of itself pretty darn well. It was a pleasant change to have support without having to babysit. The combat controls are minimal: circle button attacks, x blocks, square counters. The problem, however, is that between a press of the circle button and Jack actually swinging his sword, there's a nanosecond of lag, and then another nanosecond of lag as he recovers from the swing. It sounds insignificant and unimportant, but it destroys any button-mashing rhythm that might otherwise have been formed. Too slow to be Zelda-esque real time combat, and too fast to be turn-based, the combat ends up being repetitious drudgery. There are a few high-power moves that can be learned and upgraded, but there's no real combo system to speak of, so fights become tedious smack-fests that have no finesse. Targeting is also problematic, as the reticule moves depending on which direction Jack is facing. Whacking away at an enemy, only to receive a cheap hit because the analog stick moved a quarter degree clockwise and therefore targeted a different enemy is not a lot of fun. Fortunately, although the game is stuffed with random encounters, players can see them coming from far away, and will rarely, if ever, be caught unawares. Of course, all explore and no fight makes Jack a very low-level boy, but at least if it's getting too frustrating, players can opt to skip a fight or two. I'm almost embarrassed to mention the other problem I had with Radiata Stories, as it's really very minor. Searching for items in games is nothing new; players are used to hitting the "search" button as they wend their way through environments, hoping to uncover some useful little tidbit. In Radiata Stories, Jack doesn't search, he kicks. Want to look in a bureau? Kick it. Under a rock? Kick. In that bucket? Kick. Although this does lead to a few amusing comments from ancillary characters, it soon becomes gratingly annoying. Can't you use your hands, Jack? Do you have some sort of bizarre soccer fixation that we're unaware of? Just pick up the damn flowerpot already if you want to look in it! I'm sure the developers just did it to be a little different, but there are some aspects of the traditional RPG that simply don't need to be fixed. I really, really wanted to love Radiata Stories, because so much of it works so well. The graphics are inspired, the writing and acting are hilarious, and combing the world for 177 companions is my kind of obsessive-compulsive fun. Combat comprises so much of the gameplay in an RPG, though, that if it's at all frustrating or unsatisfying, the game becomes all but unplayable. Not all gamers will be as put off with Radiata's fighting system as I was, but it's still enough of an acquired taste to make renting before buying a wise decision.
