"Radiata Stories:Fun and Intresting with Action and Comedy"

Radiata Stories

Well lets see now, where to start? Ah yes, well: When I first picked up Radiata Stories I had no idea what I was getting into other then the fact that A: I was going to be playing to role of a certain Jack Russell, and B: that the game involved real time combat. Well to tell you the truth I didn't know for sure what to expect but the game being real time combat based, I knew I'd probably enjoy it at least a little.

Well to start things off when you pop in the game and start on your way the first scene of the game is an action packed fight between an armored warrior and a dragon. Very interesting. And after you are sent head first into the realm of the Radiata universe.

Story Line- (8/10):
The story line in the game is nothing super amazing, but still high quality . However, this is the type of game that really does not take a very serious tone for a good while in the game progression so as you can imagine the story really does not get super in depth. But I found that it is comparable in quality to the story of Kingdom Hearts: the main difference is that Kingdom hearts held a for more serious tone. Rather the story takes on the feeling of a lively comedy. In fact a good 3/4 of the game is rather light hearted and only in the last 1/4 do things start to get messy. Which brings me to an interesting point. After you've progressed about 3/4 of the game you'll run into a story split: namely you have to chose which side of the coming war you want to be on. This aspect of the story in very interesting, The same major events take place on both sides, but the consensuses turn out differently. But I'll decline from giving you any more information other wise it would spoil things tremendously. At any rate the over all story is very entertaining and there are a few plot twist thrown in for good measure that will definitely keep you interested.

Game-Play:(8/10)
I actually was very impressed with the game play. For the majority of the game you can wonder freely accomplishing objectives that the game sets in front of you that'll need conquered. The game takes you from snowy regions to harsh desert, from huge red wood forest to grassy plains, and from the simple country side to the busy life in the big city. The world of Radiata is connected by roads and bridges that connect regions of the land together. You can use these roads to traverse the large world the game is set in, and along the way fighting monsters ranging anywhere from simple wild animals to Orcs and Goblins. The action is fun and fast paced and anyone from a beginner to a veteran gamer will enjoy. The environment of the game is completely explore able using the ‘kick' button which allows you to give a little kick to random objects and even people. Although if you haven't leveled up kicking random people two times in a row is advised against. Mainly because they'll probably get very angry and beat you up.

One aspect of the game that is by far the most notable is the fact that you can recruit up to 177 characters to join you in your quest. Once they have been added to your ‘friend list' you can then form a four person party to go out an adventure with. These characters are all unique and range in skill from so called warriors that can barely swing a spear to the guild leaders who could destroy any enemy in a blink of an eye. Each character has his or her own problems and stories and its up to you as the player of Jack Russell to help them out and earn their trust.

Graphics: (7/10)
The graphics of the game weren't all that incredible but the game most definitely had its own style and taste. The graphics were very, for lack of a better word, beautiful in their own way. I found that the back ground and graphic style had an almost ‘kid' like look to it. It reminded me of a mix between Super Mario and Ratchet and Clank, and yet it still has a very unique taste to it. The whole atmosphere was..... well...... putting it simply: fun.
My biggest complaint about the game was that some of the movements in the movies and some of the animation was a little bit.....edgy. For example: in a couple of the animated scenes some of the characters would watch something go by. And when the rotated, instead of their feet moving as if they were stepping to turn. Instead their body would magically rotate with their feet moving at all. Anyway, it was just little things like that that tend to annoy after playing the game a couple of times.

Music: (7/10)
It's kind of hard to go wrong with music on a video game, but then again there are some companies who do it better then others. Well if you're getting interested in the game I can assure you that the music on the game is actually very good. All the music seems to have been done by an orchestra and some of the styles range from classical to jazz to....well other....stuff. At any rate the real point being most of the music won't let you down. The only thing I had to complain about was that I thought some of the Fighting music should have been a little more .....hard core. But it's all up to you as the player.

Replay Value: (9/10)

I happen to believe that the replay value is pretty high of this game. Being that there's a split path near the end of the game, it makes you want to play the game again to see what the other ending is like. Also once you beat the game you can use a feature called ‘New Game+' which allows you to save all your consumable items, cash, learned skills, and links to be used in a new game. Now granted you can't keep your armor/weapons/levels from the last game but that wouldn't be very fair would it? At anyway I've had the game for about 6 months now and I've already racked up around 200 hours just because there's so much you can do and I keep going round and round enjoying the two different endings. So I'd say replay value it high depending on the type of person you are.

Overall Quality: (8/10)
The game has it's faults but where it doesn't do too good it makes up for in other areas.

‘Rent it' , ‘But it' , or ‘Barrow it'?
If I were you, Barrow it would be the best option, although buying it isn't a bad idea either. And believe me DON'T ‘Rent it'. I tried that and couldn't finish it soon enough. This is one game you won't want to miss if you enjoy the real time role playing games. So enjoy and I hope this might have help a bit to get an understanding of just what this game is like, and personally I highly recommend it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/31/06