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From the makers of Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile comes an RPG that is light hearted and will not take you a whole lifetime to complete. But does it deliver with a strong storyline and memorable gameplay? Well the jury is still out on that one. 

Radiata Stories is set in an animelike universe complete with radiata knights, humans and fairy kind.  You play as Jack, a new recruit in the knights who is assigned to the Rose Cochon Brigade.  To set up the typical RPG storyline, you are accompanied by two major characters: a stuck up but strong girl, Ridley and a bumbling big guy named Ganz.  One of the more innovative parts of the game is that you will have to choose sides on where your alliances will lay, either the human or the fairies.  We all know where my alliances are. **wink wink**

Gameplay is developed through cut scenes and in game dialogue.  Voiceovers are good but the plot is somewhat immature.  The lines could be considered funny or annoyingly campy depending on what side of the fence you sit on.  I tend to prefer RPGs that are a more little serious in nature but I do agree that the light hearted nature of Radiata Stories is a welcome change to break the routine. 

Okay, now hear is the calling card of the system, the fact that you get to use up to 177 different characters in battle.  Similar to the game Suikoden, the characters that you meet will be located on a friends list that you can call up for battle.  All the characters other than Jack come into battle equipped with weapons and spells that you cannot alter.  You can order commands of these characters and also perform link formations.  Link formations allow your party to act in collaboration increasing the strength of your attacks.  The real time battle system is somewhat button mashing similar to Star Ocean.  With each hit that does damage, you will earn volty points which can be used for limit breaks. 

The grind factor is not too bad with Radiata Stories but you do learn new skills with the more battles you complete.  This game focuses on linear game play for both the regular environment and the dungeons.  The world is quite detailed and the game runs on a day/night cycle.  This does not affect the gameplay as much but helps progress the storyline at better pace than most RPGS.  A full storyline can be completed in roughly 25 to 30 hours. Music in the game is light hearted as well. Is that at all surprising?

To sum it up, Radiata Stories is your typical RPG, but it doesn’t give you nightmares at night. Some might be turned off by the silly antics, but others might see it as a detox from such games as Final Fantasy. While I won’t say Radiata Stories is the most thought provoking RPG out there, I will say that the lush environment and immense amount of characters greatly make up for this. Overall, Radiata Stories is a great game to check out for a weekend play knowing you won’t have to spend 100+ hours of your life to complete it.

3.5 out of Five Fairy Creatures