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 enlarge | From: Square Enix
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $8.27
You Save: $11.72 (59%)
New (23) Used (25) from $8.27
Avg. Customer Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 3518
Platform: Playstation2
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Playstation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 90509
Model: 90509
UPC: 662248905099
EAN: 0662248905099
ASIN: B0009A4EUI
Release Date: September 8, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Minimal scratches on disk. Comes with original case. May or may not include manual. 100% guaranteed against defects. Contact us within 7 days if there is any defect, and we will gladly refund your purchase. Our standard shipping method is USPS Media Ma
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| Customer Reviews:
 Standard RPG with a Few Unique Quirks January 19, 2008
This review is written by James Shea, my son.
A charming PS2 with a lot of unique touches, Radiata Stories is in many ways a standard RPG but distinguishes itself in many ways as well.
The story follows Jack Russell (as in, the terrier), an enthusiastic young knight, as he negotiates the treacherous path carved out by his profession. The early parts of the game follow his unit, the Rose Cochon (pink pig) brigade, as it takes missions to protect the humans' alliances with the other races of their world. The story doesn't really develop until later in the game, when Jack is forced to choose an alliance that will dictate the entire rest of the game. The game's main virtue, in terms of story, is the wide variety of characters that it has - 175 in all, similar in scale only to the Suikoden games. Depending on the path chosen, different characters can be gained.
The gameplay is a cross between standard RPGs (encounters lead to mini-arenas where enemies are fought, just like most other RPGs) and action RPGs like Kingdom Hearts (the action is real-time, and the player must attack and dodge with the controller. The player is always Jack, who has four options: attacking, defending, using a charge attack (that takes energy gained from regular attacks to do a more powerful one), and items. His companions tend to be more diverse and have a wider array of skills and weapons. Mages, clerics, and warriors - among others - are available.
One of the neatest things about the game is the fact that the NPCs live actual lives - depending on the time, they will be at a different place and can be observed moving back and forth. Stores will be closed at night; not unusual, but unlike some others which have an arbitrary locked door and a sign, this one actually shows the shop owners heading home. One early puzzle involves getting a chest guarded by a dwarf; at 5 o'clock game time, the dwarf will head for the pub, and you are free to get the chest's contents.
Despite some darker twists in the story, the graphics are bright, colorful, and cheerful, the music is bouncy and energetic, and the characters all have light-hearted moments. Graphically, the game resembles a cross between Final Fantasy IX and Dark Cloud 2. It's cartoony and the characters are misproportioned like FF9, and the colors more resemble DC2. The voice acting is done pretty well, but can be turned off if preferred (the options are text only, text and voice, or voice only).
As a whole, this game falls into the same categories as other RPGs, but also tends to stand out on its own merits. While a lot of the game is the same old stuff, it has a few quirks to make it unique.
Rating: 8/10.
Fun, but a little shallow November 8, 2007
Radiata Stories is one of those typical RPGs portraying an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil, where the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and a young nobody becomes the deciding factor in this ultimate struggle. The difference this time [Slight Spoiler] is that you get to decide which side to fight for. In short, Radiata Stories is no Final Fantasy, but for around $19.99 it has enough gameplay and charm to keep you occupied and entertained for a good 40-50 hours.
The main thing you will notice when starting Radiata Stories is the odd sense of humor throughout. Though the game gets plenty serious by the time things are building to a climax, the story and dialogue are constantly interrupted by bizarre gags and ridiculous characters. I found this to be very refreshing, especially since the voice acting for the main characters is nicely done. Another great aspect of the game is the gorgeous graphics-- both characters and world come alive in an anime-style cel-shading that rivals just about anything else I've seen on the PS2. The only downside to the graphics is that cutscenes are few and far between, and most of the time, they don't vary much from the in-game graphics. Don't expect any breathtaking Final Fantasy style cinematic movies.
The battle system is also a little different. Instead of random encounters, you can see enemies on the map and avoid them if you choose (similar to Chrono Cross on the PS1, or perhaps Final Fantasy XII). Also, once you initiate combat, you're thrown into a real-time brawl where you have total control of the main character, and (eventually) limited ability to command your three allies. This combat system is quite fun at first, but becomes repetitive once you play deeper into the game. The main issue I had, was that once you level up sufficiently and learn the best approach to fighting the enemies, battles become far too easy. You can essentially do the exact same maneuver for every fight you get into, up to and including the final boss.
Another downside to the gameplay, is that there is not a whole lot of customization involved. You can switch to different weapons with the main character, choose which special ability everyone has, and select a list of combos to perform in battle. Other than that, you have little control over what's going on with your party.
The main area of depth in the game is your recruitment of allies throughout the game world. Essentially, every single character you talk to can be recruited into your party. And if you bother to fight alongside them enough, even the lowliest peasant boy can turn into a god on the battlefield. A lot of characters can only be recruited under a specific set of conditions, and finding out how when and where to satisfy these requirements is a lot of the fun. Being able to run around from one side of the world to the other (from a decently early point in the game) in search of party members and key items is thrilling as well, and it prevents the game from feeling linear. Since you also have a continual list of missions to perform in the order you choose, the game gives you a truly satisfying amount of freedom.
So all in all, there are some pretty major high points and some frustrating lows for Radiata Stories. If you are a hardcore RPG player, you might find this game too simplistic. If you are a fan of a good story, surprising wit, and a large world to freely explore, however, you'll probably get a lot of satisfaction out of it.
 Good Game November 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a very cool game. The art is gorgeous. The game play is really awsome after you really get in to the game. My only problem with it is the lack of save points, but thats just a challenge. Just play it.
 Get it cheap and be mildly happy... May 3, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This game is pretty standard issue story wise. You play hero X, get involved with a grand malevolent scheme, thwart evil plans... blah blah blah. The story takes a huge back seat in this game, moving on.
The combat is the highlight of this game I believe, as should be expected of the makers of the Star Ocean series. You have your choice from a few different weapons each having unique attacks that you earn through use. You can combine up to 5 of these standard attacks to form your combo any way you see fit. You eventually learn one power attack (Volty Attack) for each weapon. I pretty much hack and slashed my way through every battle even though you can block and counter. I found that after you had attacks that could break the enemies guard you had basically won the fight. You can also call on your partners to use their various attacks once you get to a point in the story. Finally you can change formations on the fly which allow you to surround enemies and pound them or do flanking formations and other such things. The only thing that sucks about all of this is that you gradually open these features with the story so you're forced to wait quite a while before combat gets even remotely interesting.
Combat aside, this game is basically one big distraction of collecting friends Suikoden style. The crappy part is you don't get a castle/stronghold like in Suikoden, you simply collect 100+ equally worthless allies (Because your main character is all that really matters) while you wait for something to happen in the story. This drove me completely bonkers. I was so bored sometimes in this game I would repeatedly have to sleep or leave my game running just to get the story to advance because quite frankly I didn't care to collect every character after a while. In Suikoden you felt compelled to collect everybody because every now and again they acutally did something additional for you like sell you stuff or teleport you, not the case in Radiata Stories.
In summary, this is a collection game. The story is superficial and cliche, the combat is fun but one dimensional, and everything takes a side note to making friends. It's really a shame because the game looks and sounds good but it's can be a terrible bore to play at times.
Not the Best, but Certainly not the Worst March 9, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Graphics: Anime-style look, character designs are decent. Areas can be a long stretch because the games is pretty large-scale. But when you get to areas where enemies are populated, it's disappointing because many of the areas are simply left-to-right or right-to-left paths to get to the next time, sort of like a side-scroller, meaning there's not much exploration. Although when you equip new armor or weapons, it appears on the screen.
Sound: Music isn't bad, but not memorable either. The voice acting is quite good though, and there's plenty of it. The personality of the main character is shown through fun dialogue and voice-acting. All the NPCs have their own little sound bite and personality.
Battle: You get to manually run up to the enemy and beat them senseless, unlike many other RPGs. Unfortunately, that can get repetitive as well. And despite getting over 150 allies and choosing up to three to put into your party of four, you can only manually control the main character.
Difficulty: This game is not particularly hard, but it can stretch if you want to collect EVERY single character in the game (you'll have a chance to do that because there is a New Game Plus option when you beat the game)
Other: 1) In this RPG, the place has it's own clock that goes 24 hours a day. I figure it takes around 10 or 20 minutes for one hour to pass on the clock. Because of that clock, all NPCs are controlled by their own routine by the hours.
2) You can get almost every NPC in this game, if they look different from everyone else. The game calls allies a more blunt name, Friends. Unfortunately, you may not actually want to use many of them in battle because, simply put, a lot of them suck. But some are needed to gain access to the much stronger allies along the way.
Fun?: This game is not for everyone, but I like games that allow me more freedom to just go up to the enemy and beat the crap outta them then just issuing time-consuming orders. The dialogue and the voice-acting was funny, which is uncommon for many RPGs. The main character is a dork with a mind for justice, but he has funny lines. And lastly, NPCs are pretty fun to talk to too!
Score: Probably 7.5 or 8 out of 10
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