Why I Love Radiant Historia 

I picked up this game last week and absolutely fell in love with it. I consistently find myself engrossed in its story and gameplay as if I’m reading a good book. Radiant Historia is exactly what I look for when I buy a new JRPG.

Radiant Historia is one of the greatest jrpg's off all time, possibly in my top 4 alongside P4G and P5 and Xenogears. Tonally, the game has a mixture of the darker, more mature politics of Game of Thrones, The Witcher series and a Yasumi Matsuno game. With the time traveling, universe switching and cause and effect of the Zero Escape series, with also of hints of the Chrono games. What amazes me is that almost all of the characters both hero's and villains. Are written 3 dimensionally, I particularly like Heiss. He is very reminiscent to characters like Robert Ford from Westworld, Johnny Sack from The Sopranos and Littlefinger. He shares Robert Ford's nihilism and duplicity, while also having the manipulation skills and machivellism of Littlefinger and Johnny Sack. With that being said, which ever version you play your getting a great game. While I love the 3ds version, I am alittle disappointed by some of atlus practices for including dlc. I also wish that the remake included the original in the same vein as Odin sphere. Anyways I love this game and like this video illustrates I recommend checking the game out.

I love Radiant Historia too, especially the combat Shame no one really talking about this game, probably not going to have any sequel too with this kind of popularity

Thanks for the recommendation Mike. You've talked this game up so much that I think I'm going to have to check it out now. Altus is definitely the king of JRPGs these days. Glad to hear you've played Persona 4 (and hopefully someday 5) because those games give me the same sense of awe that Radian Historia gives you. They're both just utter perfection.

Because of this video i decied to hunt it down and play last year (got lucky and found this on a whim when went paris), and final finshed it at the start of this year. I've gotta say this game is a honestly a fantastic games and is quickly become one of my favourite JRPG. So i like to thank you guy for recommending this.

This game is one of the best jrpgs out there, with mechanics I think are better than Chrono Trigger tbh. I'm extremely happy to see it getting the publicity it deserves, because I've never seen anyone talk about it at a critical level. 7 years after it's original release.

i absolutely love this game. i remember having little expectation for this game but as it progressed i loved it more and more. the story. the combat. the characters.

This is a great game that deserved more attention. Thanks for making a video on such an underrated gem!

I just recently played this too, and it's fantastic. If you like the time travel mechanic, check out Zero Escape. Granted, it's a VN not an RPG, but it's amazing.

Wonderful anime artwork. Reminds me of Xenogears or Grandia, symbolic and beautiful. Will check this out someday, though I live in Japan (long term) and getting an English copy is a pain, despite reading and speaking Japanese fluently. Yoko Shimomura? Oh my god! Well, now I HAVE to get this. Thank you so much, and much love to you my friend

So many little things that this game does so well. The story, gameplay, and tone are all great of course, but it's little things like the sprite animations and art direction that really sealed the deal for me

I've had a hard time finding something to play after exhausting everything Persona 5 had to offer to me in the 200 hours plus i played it for. The time travel mechanics in this convinced me.

I've been meaning to check this out and now I definitely will. For me it was playing Persona 5 that gave me that "Atlus is King of the Hill for JRPGs" realization.

Ugh. I was planning to eventually play it, but now you make me feel like getting it right now. Curious: Where do the Golden Sun games and The World Ends With You rank in your list?

I have played dozens of JRPGs, but the ones I played non-stop, practically without going outside, for a hole week, are probably Xenoblade, Ni No Kuni 2, and this one.

I find this to be one of my favorite games of all time great story and battle system is so addicting!

Hey, you guys got me to pick this game up (Perfect Chronology)....glad I did! I'm really enjoying it, totally overlooked first time around. Thanks!

Great video! I haven't finished this game yet (haven't got the time), but i really enjoyed it

I wasn't too convinced on getting the remake due to the different character portraits, but seeing that they added a minimap in the field is all the convincing I need.

Radiant Historia was a amazing game. I love the time travel mechanic.

It recaptured me as well. It's a fantastic game. I seen you name dropping the Legend of Heroes series, Mike you've got to play and talk about this amazing series. It became my favourite of all time (beating Final Fantasy, etc). Play them.

I finished RS on DS a little while before it be remade for 3ds , and soon after it was released for 3ds and it got even more famous

It's top 5 for me, too.

I knew nothing about Radiant Historia until I heard about the remake. I love the game, and I love the soundtrack.

id love a short video like this that dealt with either scoring in old games vs new. Or one that outlined you fav battle system(s). I know its been covered in the podcast but in a short structured video it would be great.

Great video Mike. After watching this video I want to give this game a chance because it has a lot of the things that I like in a JRPG. Also Mike since you hate bad humor will probably dislike Persona 5 some. While the game wants to talk about serious issues it at the same time wants to make these bad jokes even at the expense of the characters and/or writing and it's nerve-wracking. Get better soon!

Will totally get this after I run through Alliance Alive. Also, my 'like' was for the game, not your flu. Hope you feel better soon.

Wow he sounds really sick get better soon man

Like I said before, you're a man with culture.

I find the whole mana crystal mechanic to be pretty obsolete, too- I can just use any save point to warp to a different timeline with a bed, sleep it off, and return. This does not work when I am progressing through a chapter and have to replay from that chapter to my current level of complestion, but frankly 5000$ worth of energy crystals vs 5000$ worth of mana restoratives and you heal using that mana.. Would give you far more for your dollar. Never had a need for mana crystals

review without swearing are much, much better - maybe I'll find some soon

this game is highly underrated. i love this game.

Huh. Is this where the PSP version of Tactics Ogre got its time travel mechanic idea from? Seems like a very similar concept.

I had to take a break in reviewing for my 4 exams tomorrow and picked up my 3DS, somehow I found a demo of this and I'm pretty much hooked that I used 3 hours to play instead of reviewing. Where is the White Chronicle of this world?

After this Video i bought the game and i love it

Radiant Historia, in terms of world-building, is very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics, in my opinion, regarding the plot twists and how moraly grey characters can be.

You can choose timelines? Reminded me of Ogre Battle.

Can I play this only on NitendoDS? IS there another option?

Stocke is a prince lmao

What do you think of shining force 2? My favorite game ever!!!!

Dont know if youve played it yet. But if you havent you gotta play radiata stories. Radiant historia is the spiritual successor to that game.

I actually hated the pacing of this game so much that it dragged down the rest of the game for me. The constant rising action > road block > jump to the other time line > rising action again > road block again > jump to the original time line flow of the game meant I was getting pushed away from things I was getting invested in then would get so invested in the new proceedings that I didn't want to go back to the original. It sucks because I agree with you on everything else, but the pacing was just the worst for me. If the flow felt a little more organic and open as opposed to having very obvious formula with hard road blocks I'd probably have liked it more. I dunno, this is one of those big games lots of people love that I had a hard time with. Mayde I'll give it another shot some day, I bought the port even though I felt that way when I bought it.

Is this the most recent Matsuna game?

I have a question... What is up with all that *SPOILERS* Singularity and Red Chronicle and Nemesia stuff? Could it be considered secondary or does it actually changes a lot of the ending? I mean I saw a game play and Heiss was helping the protagonists while in the original Heiss is the main and final antagonist so I'm assuming it does change some things...

Given the 3DS version is going for over a hundred bucks now, would you say the ds one ($35-40) is sufficient enough to experience this game?

Cool, I'm actually playing the demo of this game. Of course there was no need to reccomend it

The MC sorta looks like shulk

Which version did you prefer? DS or 3DS remake?

Sounds really like my kind of game, unlike Xenoblade 2 or Persona.

"Atlus is the new king of JRPGs right now." I couldn't agree more!

I have been watching this game closely and have been on the fence about picking it up. This video was the final tipping point I needed to buy the game. I plan on picking it up at some point this week. Excellent video!

man, for whatever reason nintendo has much more success with RPGs on their handheld consoles than their TV consoles. no idea why developers made so many rpgs on limited hardware, and not the gamecube, Wii, Wii U, etc. the GBA/DS/3DS RPG and side scrolling library is HUGE.

ATLUS has been the king of the hill of JRPGs since the PS2 days. The titles that they develop are consistently great - SMT, Persona, Etrian Odyssey, Radiant Historia - and they are awesome publishers as well. They have localized the original Disgaea, Demon Souls, Odin Sphere, Dragon's Crown...

I feel that mature and serious games are very hard to nail down, because not only asking for players to be serious, but they need to be themselves not take any aspect of their design lightly. Since PS3/X360 era, many pop culture things (movies, TV and Games) went all serious and gritty, but very rarely did they actually feel serious. In fact many feel _tiring_ after watching/playing them. I too feel the same with you. Radiant Historia is a standard for me, (and in my very biased opinion, should be the standard for video games in general). Sure you'll have you fun games and not many care for ludonarrative dissonance, but if gaming as a medium needs to be taken seriously, we will need a lot more mature games.

Just beat this game and as a successor of Radiata Stories, I am 100% satisfied, the story was simply amazing and engrossing. I'm absolutely pissed at myself for not finding out about this game earlier, I wrote it off years ago as just some derpy looking jrpg not knowing it was worked on by a lot of the same people who did Radiata stories and when I figured that out with the remaster dropping I just had to try it out. Worth the 60 dollars I had to dish out to get it delivered to my house via postmates, I was suffering from a cold myself.

Sold. I'll have to pick this one up.

Just finished the game. It's one of the best if not the best JRPG I've ever played, so addictive battle system and great story with realistic characters writing .. This game deserves much more love :(

I just bought it :) , yeah in 2019, never too late!

Eruca's hair is long? Literally unplayable.

The best game on the 3DS, that I've played at least. Incredible music, story, characters, battle mechanics, etc. Surprised Atlus never made a sequel.

this game deserves so much more than a simple port to another handheld... it's like a steak in a mcdonald's bag

Rest up and get well soon :) Take your time.

Just got radiant historia on sale after Xmas. I'm 15hrs in. Its soo good. I put off getting it because it seemed meh on the store. I do think the first 5hrs was a little show but around 5-6hrs it'll have its claws in you

This was on sale on the eshop for £6.74, which is an insanely low price given that it's going for almost 10x that amount for a physical cartridge. My research led me to your video, and I didn't even make it 3/4 of the way through before buying it. Really good video here man.

Radiant Historia has this strange emphasis on German-sounding names like Heiss (Heiß), Stocke (Stock, pronounce "Shtock"), Eruca, Rosch. When I first played it I kind of assumed that this was arbitrary, but in this new version, it actually shows the contents of the White Chronicle in the anime cutscene, and what's neat here is that it is actually filled with runes. (Runes aren't a "Scandinavian" thing; they're actually a *Germanic* thing.) The characters in the book don't form any actual words, but I suppose that's to be expected. Anyway, basically, I think the developers must have been going for a *highly* German setting. And that's interesting when you consider the very unique relationship between Japan and Germany (being allied in WWII as the axis powers). Just something I really noticed. Not sure if it's useful to anyone else though... lol.

This is one of the great games that i don't hear talked about enough. I actually didn't pay attention to the combat system for a big chunk and didn't understand why it was such a grind. So when i did realize what i was doing wrong, i felt like a god. That's what i like about simple but interesting combat systems like this, it makes players want ot get into fights. Ex. Tails of symphonia.

Very interested to hear your opinion on trails in the sky now after this video Each Trails series takes place on a different country on the same continent, so the first game in each series usually isn't too serious (until the end) and is instead about the characters going through their job/other reason to fully explore their continent, and as a result the series has THE BEST worldbuilding of just about any other JRPG I've played, not to mention the script being one of the best as well, there are so many screenshot worthy lines in the game, the characters ooze personality Radiant Historia is fantastic and I'm glad the port gave it some more much needed attention, I just hope the same can happen for Trails at some point, because the Trails series (particularly the Sky series) has become the new benchmark for me on what a truly amazing JRPG series is like, kinda like you with this game I imagine

Great video mike, you've convinced me to pick up Perfect Chronology. Get well soon!

Hacked my 3ds the other day and been looking for games to get. Definitely gonna download this one a try, time travel had me hooked

Is replenishing HP and MP some new horrible trend I'm not aware of? The only game I can think of that does that is FF15, although mostly I've been playing a lot of oldschool JRPGs that I missed out on. The only other new JRPG I've played recently was Persona 5, and that game places a pretty heavy emphasis on items.

I just got this game. Now a days it’s very expensive physical but I got it for less than $10 on the Atlus sale on the 3ds. I started playing it today and I am looking forward to play this game in the next few days/weeks. I was glued to my 3ds and I am already so invested in this story

You make a vett good job at explaining why Radiant Historia is good. I’m very tired of standard J-RPG writing, this is probably for me. I’ve been looking at the DS game, will go for that one since I prefer the art style and no voices.

I really wish they would put more classic style JRPGs on Switch, and of this quality on other Consoles and PC. I would love to see something like Bravely Default made for the Switch. I tried but just couldn't get into games like I am Setsuna and find myself returning and playing games like Phantasy Star IV, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy IV to get my old school fix. I am excited for Octopath Traveller :) I did enjoy Cosmic Star Heroine on PS4 (you can get it on Steam as well) quite a bit.

This game is amazing. I'm surprised how it seems to only have a cult following and that's it

Radiant historia was amazing. Btw is the new ending in perfect chronology or the old ending from the ds version canon? Basically which ending is the “correct” ending.

I’ve been listening to your podcasts in the car for the past few weeks and seeing this video puts a smile on my face. Keep up the good work man!

This is my most favourite game of all time. I love it. The story is sooooo good. Some one should write a book on the story.

I'm not big into the jrpg thing but this game is cool as shit

Ahhh I remember my first time playing Radiant Historia. It caught my eye cause I thought it was similar to Radiata Stories. I didn't know what I expected, but then that title theme came on.... oh god I fell in love with this game right then and there. Boy did it take me for a ride.

glad you talked about this! i snagged it up when it came out because the original was always a game i wish i played on the DS but never got around to. i'm actually finally playing xenoblade chronicles X(another game i picked up on release but never put time into) atm now based on your recommendation and have become addicted! cant wait to keep the JRPG gaming strong, thanks for your videos for the inspiration!

Lmao that’s dimitri in the thumbnail

Wow, I did not know about the $2.50 DLC for original character artwork. My game is still sealed, so I guess you can only view DLC for his game via in game menus when you access the eShop through the game?

I played this on the 2nd print run back in the ds. Fell in love with this one hard. I want to get the 3ds one eventually

Persona 5 was good for item management if you played it on a high enough setting since it's auto heal actually drains SP.

Damn I love this game. Wish we could get nemesia in the party with eruca and aht

Really glad that you made this video, one of my fav..~ Pls next consider making one for Suikoden I and II... ^^

Yep, Atlus are amazing when it comes to JRPGs nowadays. My first experience with Atlus was the Digital Devil Saga games and they're still in my top 10 for RPGs for the interesting, sometimes heartbreaking, story, likeable characters and fun gameplay.

Radiant Historia is pretty different from the average RPG from Atlus, and that's why I like it. For the most part, the changes made in the new version seem to be to Atlusify the game more. Enemies give less money so the game gets grindier, character portraits were changed to be more generic anime looking, voice acting (the only good part), and one more annoying side quest. They also started the game essentially pairing Eruca to Stocke just to make one of the game's twists more obvious.

Played the original on an emulator back in 2015, loved the game. Paid big bucks for the 3DS remake so I can play RH how it was meant to be!

Get well soon Mike. I'm really tempted to play this game now.

Based Taste

Is the 3DS version the better version. I have the DS one, but admittedly have yet to play it beyond the first few hours.

If you haven't, and if you can, you should definitely play the Suikoden series. Namely 1 and 2, especially 2. I am very interested in checking Radiat now, mind.

I am looking for some help with this game. I couldn't find any answers on wwwgamefaqs.com. What do I do in the Sand Fortress? I am stuck in the part where there is rumble blocking the next floors and need to find the "invisible" bombs? I am just lost and stopped playing the game at his point. I am hoping someone can help me.

Where are my X fans?

To elaborate on your "humanized, nuanced" villains statement: As I beat the game today and watched the credits roll, I realized that all the "villains" got redeemed. As long as you get the truest of true endings, that is.

LLJ

You sold me, sir. This game looks AMAZING. I'm looking forward to digging in.

i play 4h in this but i already dont like the think you going all the time throught the same places i hate when game is like that. I dont like visiting the same places twice its just boring as hell. thats why i for example dont finish chrono trigger walking in the same places over and over its so dumb

Ended up here seeing a random pic on twitter, high praise if r.a is gushing about this game. Question is it a good experience emulated? Second screen can be a pain in the ass lol