My Review: Radiant Historia (DS)

One of the sad truths of the current generation of gaming is that there has been a noticeable lack of truly great traditional roleplaying games. That’s not to say there haven’t been good ones, but as good as Lost Odyssey, Dark Souls, and Tales of Vesperia are, this generation has been marked by disappointment. Final Fantasy XIII wasn’t what everyone hoped it would be, Eternal Sonata was kind of preachy, and Hyperdimension Neptunia is absolute shite and I’m sorry for anyone who spent money on that travesty (I kid, I kid). While the blame for this may or may not be placed on these games developers, or on shifting perceptions among the gaming community, and the situation actually seems to be looking up as of late with great titles such as Xenoblade Chronicles just around the corner, there just doesn’t seem to be many modern RPGs that live up to their predecessors. Enter Radiant Historia, a game released in 2011 by Atlus, which clearly draws inspiration from the classics of old, such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. Does it succeed as a great RPG experience, or is Radiant Historia a doomed pretender? Well, let it be known here and now- Radiant Historia is one of the best games to be released in a long time.