Yeah, I finally decided to stop being a lazy ass and post about this game already.
Radiant Historia has your basic RPG set-up: There's a world that is slowly dying because the land is slowly turning into desert. The kingdoms of Granorg and Alistel are at war with each other since there are precious few resources remaining. The player takes the role of Stocke, an intelligence agent with a shadow group in Alistel as he and the party members he recruits uncover the threads behind the war and the reason the planet is dying.
But there's a mechanic that separates Radiant Historia from other RPGs: Early in the game, Stocke is given an item, the White Chronicle, that allows him to journey through time in a way that's like a mix of Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. There are parallel worlds that initially split based on a decision Stocke makes in the beginning of the game, and Stocke can manipulate events in both worlds to move forward each story. And he has to do this to progress, because every so often there is something that blocks his advancement in one world that can be abated only by gaining something in the other world.
The idea of choice is also a prominent theme in the game. Stocke has many decisions to make, and often times what will happen is that Stocke must choose between two options: One option is the "correct" choice and will advance the story; the other is the incorrect choice, and will lead to a bad ending. It's very much like a Choose Your Own Adventure story: The choices are, for the most part, clear, but every so often there will be a decision where both options seem like good ideas, and you'll get tripped up.
This is the way one is supposed to advance the game: Through trial and error. It's interesting and definitely gets you to think about how one can progress through each world, but occasionally it can be frustrating, since it's not always clear what needs to be done to make progress. There weren't many times I was frustratingly stumped, though. Overall, I think the time travel and parallel worlds are a nice gimmick to give the illusion of non-linearity, even though Radiant Historia is very much a linear RPG.
The combat is the other major part of Radiant Historia that makes the game fun for me. It's a simple combo-based system: If your characters attack consecutively, they hit for more damage with each attack. (Duh.) What makes it more interesting, however, is that there are ways to manipulate the system. Turns can be switched around between your party and enemies so that you have more turns to string together stronger combos (but as a result, enemies will have more turns to attack you). There's also a move you get later in the game that allows you to erase an enemy turn, without sacrificing your turn in the process, which can be pretty damn useful against some of the harder bosses in the game.
As you level up and gain certain moves, the battle system becomes really easy to break if you're quick to spot the advantages in some moves, but for me, that actually made it more fun. There's nothing in this game that is more fun than stringing together a Lv. 30-40 combo and topping it off with crazy ass magic spells that murder the shit out of anything and everything. The final boss was actually a cakewalk for me because I abused the hell out of a certain move that builds combos quickly and efficiently. (And it felt great, too!)
Now, you may have noticed that I haven't talked that much about the story and characters so far. Well, that's because neither is really amazing, or anything. The story is your basic "We've got to save the world from these evil people!" stuff; it's just that the time travel makes it more compelling, and there are admittedly a few solid twists at the end of the game that make things a bit more interesting. I wouldn't say the plot is brilliant, or anything, but it's definitely enough for me to progress through the game, which isn't totally a bad thing.
The characters are ... OK. Stocke is a good hero. He actually has a personality, he actually gets shit done instead of bitching about it, and he really feels like a brave hero. Other characters fall solidly into JRPG archetypes. They're not especially memorable, but they're not annoying, either, so that's nice. Even the token loli is kind of awesome instead of stupid. (It helps that her magic abilities are insanely helpful against many bosses.)
Radiant Historia is a solid RPG on the whole. The battle system is fun, simple and involving, and despite what I say about how easily it can be broken, there's still some solid challenge in the game since you don't get many of those game-breaking moves until later in the game.
