Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A radiant ramble

It is done. Vainqueur has been beaten, and the sword called the "Historica" has been powered up "Masamune" style to the "True Historica." What's more, 217 of the total 236 nodes have been finished. I'll be treated to the best ending because of that. Once I actually get through the boss gauntlet that is the game's end.

On the cusp of Radiant Historia's end, I just have a quick bit about the game's time travel mechanic. As a refresher for anyone who hasn't played Radiant Historia, you can time travel from any save point to any critical moment in time. So you're not able to zip around with quite as much freedom as you can in Chrono Trigger's Epoch, but such structured time travelling adds a great deal of depth to the game.

Replaying events over and over again does get tedious, but pressing "Start" or "X" skips you through cutscenes and dialogue. However, it does allow you to see everything in the game without any fear of missing out on sidequests or hidden dialogue. Plus, if you ever do want to go back to get something every event in the game is ordered in a complete dual timeline. And sidequests are set just below or above the regular story event where they're activated.

Thus, as boggling as time travel might be, Radiant Historia's set up makes it easy to find where you need to go and to go there. On this count, Chrono Trigger could be downright opaque in its hinting at sidequests. So Radiant Historia, though frequently compared to Chrono Trigger, bests it in terms of time travel mechanics, particularly because its timelines' organization is perfectly suited to a handheld like the DS.

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