#1: Radiant Historia
Nintendo DS
Atlus
Released February 22, 2011
Like I've said in various topics, Radiant Historia is my game of the year for 2011. Need a good throwback to the great RPGs from the days of the SNES? Radiant Historia is probably the game you are looking for.
Radiant Historia stars Stocke, an army veteran in the SpecInt division who is given an item known as the White Chronicle. He finds out that this item can have him travel in time, and he uses this power throughout the game, looking for a man who has the Black Chronicle, who impedes his progress towards saving the world.
One of the great aspects of Radiant Historia is its battle system. The enemies take place in a 3 by 3 grid, and a lot of the strategy involves switching turns with allies (and the enemies!) and moving the enemies into the grid, pushing them onto traps or off of damage fields. There are some bosses that negate this by taking up the entire field, though.
The story of the game is interesting as well. The story has two paths through the game, both which affect the other timeline in various ways. As such, the player must progress on both paths to see the story of the game. There's a generic save the world plot in the game as well, but adding the time travel aspect makes the story a great deal more interesting. The characters are also some of the best you'll see. As Stocke is a military man, he's no idiot like you would expect from a jRPG protagonist. Stocke thinks things through and comes up with some amazing strategies throughout the game. Some of the other party members are also very well-written (you don't learn much about Raynie or Marco, unfortunately) but one of the party members is kind of a spoiler.
Included in the story are plenty of various sidequests. Many of the sidequests help develop the other characters in your party, or even some of the important NPCs in the storyline. Like a traditional Atlus game, one of the sidequests has an abnormally tough bonus boss that requires a good deal of grinding to win against.
If the music has a familiar feel to you, the soundtrack is done by Yoko Shimomura, famous for work on the Kingdom Hearts series and other games. Despite the soundtrack having a limited 25 tracks, each one is used amazingly to fit the feel of the current event happening. The in-battle music is some of the best tracks I've heard in a RPG in some time, even the normal battle theme is great. Links are provided, as usual. The graphics are nicely done, especially the sections within Historia, as well as the character sprites. All of the graphics are well done for a DS game.
There are a few flaws with the game, the plot does take a good deal of time to really move forward (but when it does, you won't want to stop playing!) Some of the sidequests do have some really absurd requirements, and plenty require some ridiculous backtracking through previous points in time. There's also the bad ends; while interesting as they provide a bit of story for each, they're pretty much a waste of time unless you're trying to get all the events.
Still, even with the flaws, I name this as the best RPG on the DS and the best game of 2011. Try Radiant Historia, you will not be disappointed.
Soundtrack Links
Blue Radiance -
The Edge of Green -
The Red Locus -
Shadows Dance in the Darkness -
Where the Wind and Feathers Return -
An Earnest Desire of Grey -
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Congrats to 2011 Rivalry Rumble Guru winner, SuperNiceDog
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