Building Towers of History in Tandem

Rather than frittering away time trying to get Kiel to show Stocke sword dancing during the game's Prologue, I decided to carry on. I had figured that the game's (so far) dual timeline probably works like two evenly matched racers: one pulls ahead while the other lags and vice versa, over and over again. It seems that my figuring is right.

Upon moving into the next part of the game's story, Kiel has asked Stocke to train him, and after the marching orders are given, Rosch pulls Kiel aside so that he can travel with the main group and learn from Stocke along the way.

One thing that I'm noticing about Radiant Historia, though, is that the story and the time travel mechanic are at odds.

You might have to back track every now and then to push the story forward down the parallel path, but in so doing you retread the same dialogue and interactions several times over. It's as if two towers are being built in tandem as one project: Holding up construction of the one holds up construction of the other, which in turn holds up the whole project.

I'm also a little bugged by the game's forcing you to rework your way through what was the explored overworld map each time you travel back in time. Nonetheless, the potential of each of the game's timeline forks having their unique boss and ending is enough to keep all of necessary retreading from annoying me too much.