Fifteen years ago, I published my original review of Radiant Historia for the Nintendo DS. I leveraged the game as a way for me to return to the JRPG genre after feeling burned out by Persona 3: FES and Odin Sphere. As a trio of Atlus games from around the same period of time, in retrospect there was really nothing significant about me enjoying one of these titles more than the other two. Radiant Historia had turn-based battles and was shaped mildly similar to Chrono Trigger, whereas Odin Sphere had more action and Persona 3 just sorta sucked all around. (I’m not a strong hater in general but I do still proudly hate FES as a badge of pride almost two decades later)
When the 3DS expanded remaster of Radiant Historia released in 2018, I immediately jumped on it, ready for a replay. It was never meant to be though, for whatever reason I didn’t stick with the game long. I believe I know that reason now, however, so let’s explore Perfect Chronology.
I’m not going to rehash my original review again, I still stand by what I wrote all those years ago, Radiant Historia is still a great game! It certainly feels some of its age though, it has slow gameplay and the plotting gets exceptionally bogged down in the late game with politics and factions that just don’t seem to matter. The 3DS version boasts voice acting which is mostly serviceable along with new character art and some extra scenarios.
I do honestly think the new art bothered me at release, but on a fresh playthrough so long removed from the original, it barely registered. At least until I read a great blog post comparing the two. Yeah, Eruca should not have long hair! There’s also new full screen art scenes, they look great but there’s some questionable fan service that feels out of place. Atlus gonna Atlus I guess.
The new third timeline in the 3DS game had me bored pretty quick. You can choose at the beginning of the game to have it interweave with the regular story, or plop it all at the very end. I chose the former but stopped bothering with them about halfway through. I just didn’t find the new scenarios engaging at any level, and honestly I found myself pretty done with the main game about 80% of the way through. The last few hours of Radiant Historia are definitely a trudge, I had no interest in going for the new true ending. (though I had no qualms going for 100% on the DS when I was in my 20s)
As my Ayn Thor was on its way, I knew my first game to play on it would be Radiant Historia for the 3DS. I’m putting a game design document together in my brief spare time and after years of thinking of the plot and characters, the game has morphed from whatever it used to be into a turn-based RPG. I don’t know if it will stay like that, if it ever comes to fruition in the first place, but Radiant Historia was an inspiration in my mind. The strict timeline of character order from Final Fantasy X is present here and probably my favorite style of turn-based battling. Being able to manipulate the order is even more important here though as you can build combos to boost your damage, so your characters can swap spots with the enemy even if you’d like to delay your turn. I do miss being able to swap in another character though like in FFX, that is sorely missing in Radiant Historia.
But the other battle aspect is the 3x3 grid the enemies sit on, allowing you to push them around and even stack them up to hit them all at once with a physical or magical attack. I love this in theory and mostly in practice, but it feels incomplete: your characters are completely separate from the enemies and don’t even have a grid of their own. Plus, some of the major bosses in Radiant Historia simply take up the entire grid on their own, completely removing the need to push them around. The entire final boss eliminates an entire dimension of the battle system so that it can remind you of Kefka in Final Fantasy VI?
I’m very glad I replayed the game though, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology has reminded me specifically what I do and don’t like about this battle system, which has helped me in turn possibly create my own. While the gameplay can feel slow, playing at 2x speed in an emulator solves that issue. Not only that, but the emulator Azahar allows you to run the audio at normal speed, so the voice acting and music plays out as intended, neat!
