As tedious as it is to run around in both time and space, it allows for something that games like Chrono Trigger don't: seeing how events lead into one another not merely for the sake of narrative convenience, but because of cause and effect. Playing the same scenes over and over again and bringing a more informed perspective to them each time really helps you to delineate why things happen.
Looking at events from such informed refreshed perspectives also puts a lot more pressure on the people responsible for the story hanging together.
Plot holes in a story without time travel can maybe have that mechanic close them, but a game like Radiant Historia is almost begging for a few plot holes just because of the intricacy of its time hopping. So far, so good though. This is possibly because the story hasn't developed into much more than the personal struggle of a soldier or a special agent within a system headed by a theocrat who is quite possibly a fraud. Up to where I am, there haven't been any big philosophical questions or bids to save the world from evil forces/corporations/tyrants.
Funnily enough, the detailed scope of the game's time travel has almost helped to seal up the much smaller scope of the game's story. But we'll so how much longer such things continue.
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