Radiant Historia is a role-playing video game created by Atlus and Headlock and released by Atlus for the Nintendo DS. It was first sold in Japan in 2010 and later in North America in 2011. A remade version for the Nintendo 3DS, called Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, was released in Japan in 2017 and in North America and Europe the next year. The European version was published by Deep Silver.
The game takes place on Vainqueur, a continent split between two fighting nations, Alistel and Granorg. A soldier from Alistel named Stocke is chosen to use the White Chronicle, a special book that allows him to move through different timelines to stop the continent from turning into a desert. Stocke and his group explore Vainqueur, fighting enemies on a grid-based battlefield using a turn-based system. Moving between different timelines is an important part of the story and gameplay, and the number of timelines unlocked affects the ending of the game.
Radiant Historia was made by a team that included members from Atlus' Megami Tensei series and the tri-Ace game Radiata Stories. The idea for the game was first suggested by Satoshi Takayashiki in 2007, and the concept changed several times based on ideas from Atlus staff. The remake included new artwork, voice acting, an extra story path, and an animated introduction made by A-1 Pictures. The music for both versions was written by Yoko Shimomura, and theme songs were performed by Haruka Shimotsuki.
Both versions of the game were well received and sold well in Japan and other countries. The original version was praised for its gameplay and time travel features, though some people thought its graphics and structure were less impressive. Some critics compared it to popular role-playing games from the 16-bit gaming era. The remake was also positively reviewed, with many people appreciating the added story and gameplay elements.
Gameplay
Radiant Historia is a role-playing video game (RPG) set in a fantasy world. The story follows a group of characters as they travel across the war-torn continent of Vainqueur. Players explore the game’s environments from a top-down view, with new areas becoming available as the story progresses. These areas are accessed using a world map and can be explored freely. After the game’s opening mission, the main character, Stocke, can move boxes to clear paths and solve puzzles. Other features include objects that can be broken and treasure chests containing items like armor and weapons.
A key part of the game involves navigating different story paths through alternate timelines using a book called the White Chronicle. Given to the main character at the start, the book allows Stocke to travel between timelines. After the first use, the White Chronicle can be used to time travel at special points in the game world. Following a major choice in the story, players can explore two main timelines and smaller branches from those timelines. Some events in one timeline require items or information from another timeline. A journal records events in both timelines and can be accessed through the party menu.
Except for parts where the story requires specific actions, navigating timelines is not linear. Story segments, called "nodes," are color-coded: brown nodes are main story chapters, blue boxes represent choices that create new paths, and dark boxes show points where the story ends or cannot continue. Experience points and money earned in battles are shared between timelines. Events in each timeline are connected to side quests players can complete. While the game has many endings based on player choices, only two are considered official: the standard ending and an extended version unlocked by completing all side quests.
Enemies, shown as pictures, are visible during exploration. If players run into enemies, a battle begins. Stocke can stun enemies with his sword to avoid or start a battle. A cloaking ability later in the game lets the party avoid enemies unnoticed. Battles take place in a separate arena, with battle details shown on the bottom screen and turn order on the top screen. An auto-battle feature lets the party automatically attack enemies. Winning battles rewards players with money and experience points, which improve character stats like health and attack power.
The arena is split between Stocke’s three-person party and the enemy group. The battlefield is laid out on a 3×3 grid, with enemies placed on different squares. Some enemies take up multiple squares. The player’s position is fixed, but enemies can move during their turn. Battles are turn-based, with each side taking turns to act. Actions are added to a list when selected, and both sides perform their actions once all moves are chosen. Enemy abilities depend on their position: enemies in the back have strong defense but weaker attacks, while those in the front deal more damage but take more hits.
Players can move enemies to different squares, which may trigger traps or group enemies together. Attacking a group in one square harms all enemies there. After the player’s turn, enemies return to their original positions. Combining attacks increases their power and rewards. The "Change" feature lets players rearrange the order of actions in the queue, allowing more actions to be taken. This can be used for party members or enemies. Using "Change" causes a unit to take extra damage until their action is completed.
Plot
Radiant Historia takes place on the continent of Vainqueur, a land home to humans and Beastribes. Once ruled by an ancient empire, it is now split between two warring kingdoms, Alistel and Granorg. The war began because Alistel believes Granorg is responsible for the Sand Plague, a magical illness that takes away living beings’ Mana energy and turns them into sand. The spreading desertification worsens the conflict. Stocke, an Alistel spy, is sent by his superior, Heiss, on a mission with mercenaries Raynie and Marco to escort a spy back to Alistel’s capital. Before leaving, Heiss gives Stocke a book called the "White Chronicle." The group is attacked by Granorg soldiers, and only Stocke, who is seriously injured, escapes. He enters Historia, a realm separate from time, where overseers Teo and Lippti tell him he can use the White Chronicle to change events. Stocke completes his mission and saves Raynie and Marco.
During his journey, Stocke follows two timelines: one where he stays with Heiss and another where he joins a military unit led by his friend Rosch. He uses skills from each timeline to progress in his roles and interacts with Beastmen, including shaman Aht and warrior Gafka. Someone using the Black Chronicle, a book paired with the White Chronicle, tries to stop Stocke. In both timelines, Stocke helps Granorg’s princess Eruca, who can perform a ritual to stop the Sand Plague by sacrificing a human soul. He also learns that Hugo, a religious leader in Alistel, has secretly allied with Granorg to overthrow its queen, Protea, and manipulate the war. Heiss is revealed to be working for his own goals, playing both sides, and knows about the White Chronicle.
In both timelines, Stocke defeats Protea and Hugo. Heiss explains that the ritual requires sacrificing Granorg royalty, whose souls are used to stabilize Vainqueur’s mana and slow the Sand Plague. Stocke is revealed to be the intended sacrifice, Eruca’s brother, who was resurrected using part of Eruca’s soul. Heiss, Stocke’s uncle, believes the ritual is pointless and wants the Sand Plague to consume Vainqueur. He abducted Stocke, gave him his identity, and used the Black Chronicle to show Stocke the futility of the mission. Heiss, Teo, and Lippti explain that the Sand Plague was caused by a spell that got out of control, meant to stabilize the world’s mana for an ancient empire. The empire’s rulers created the Black and White Chronicles to help the ritual, allowing the Sacrifice to see hope while the Caster reflects on the past. Teo and Lippti are remnants of the sorcerer who made the Chronicles. Heiss was originally the intended Sacrifice but escaped with the Black Chronicle, which shaped his belief that everything is doomed.
After stopping Heiss’s attempts to change history, Heiss merges with past sacrifices’ souls to become the monster Apocrypha. Stocke and his group defeat Heiss and destroy Apocrypha. In the normal ending, Stocke becomes the sacrifice, completing the ritual and slowing the Sand Plague. In the true ending, Heiss sacrifices himself instead after seeing Stocke’s belief in a better future, allowing Stocke to return to the world. Characters work to rebuild Vainqueur and research ways to stabilize mana, reducing the need for sacrifices.
In the expanded storyline, Stocke meets Nemesia on a ship outside time. Collecting artifacts, Stocke helps Nemesia gather the Red Chronicle, a third magical book, to stop the desertification. After retrieving all artifacts, Stocke convinces Heiss to use the Black Chronicle’s power, then reunites with the group and Nemesia. Nemesia reveals the desertification is caused by a Mana-consuming entity called the Singularity, created by the Empire’s experiments on her secret lover, Rhodan. Using the three Chronicles’ power, the group destroys the Singularity, ending the need for sacrifices. Nemesia stays with comatose Rhodan outside time. In their world, characters settle into normal lives. Stocke and Heiss become friends. Nemesia and Rhodan, who is recovering, are brought back to the real world using an artifact from the Red Chronicle.
Development
Radiant Historia was created together by Atlus, a company famous for the Megami Tensei series, and a Japanese studio called Headlock. Staff members had worked on both Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Radiata Stories, a 2005 PlayStation 2 role-playing game made by tri-Ace and published by Square Enix. From Radiata Stories, original concept designer Satoshi Takayashiki acted as co-director and concept designer, while artist Hiroshi Konishi repeated his role as character designer. The director was Mitsuru Hirata from Atlus. Before this, Hirata had worked as a planner for several Megami Tensei games, but Radiant Historia was his first time being a director. Field planner Tatsuya Watanabe, battle planner Sawao Kato, event planner Kenichi Takamori, and programmer Daisuke Yajima had all worked on earlier Megami Tensei titles; Watanabe and Takamori both worked on Strange Journey. The lead 2D and 3D designers were Tomohiro Okuno and Yasuko Sumiya, respectively.
The idea for Radiant Historia came from Takayashiki, who first shared his plan with Atlus in 2007. His early idea was to make a traditional RPG that players would enjoy. Atlus was chosen because Takayashiki admired their past work. Although Takayashiki first suggested the 3×3 grid-based battle system in his proposal, many of the skill-related details were added by Atlus staff. According to Hirata, Atlus was excited about the collaboration because Radiant Historia was a type of project that would not have been made by the company. When designing the gameplay, Atlus staff kept the basic plan but improved the mechanics and simplified sprite animations to make battles faster. The enemy AI was also changed to be less difficult, and field actions were added to help players. The time-travel feature caused challenges, as the team had to figure out how to show the White Chronicle as a game mechanic. Frequent text updates were added to help players remember the story, since the game was on the portable Nintendo DS, which might cause interruptions. Atlus later said Radiant Historia was their most difficult development for the DS platform.
The game was first hinted at by a trademark in March 2010 and officially announced in July of that year. As reported by Japanese magazine Famitsu, the game was 80% complete at that time. It was released in Japan on November 3, 2010. A North American release was announced the same month, with the game localized and published by Atlus USA, the North American branch of Atlus. Work on the English version started in August 2010, with a large team including four translators for the game's text. Editing was done by Nich Maragos, Scott Strichart, Mike Meeker, and Clayton Chan, while the QA team was led by Richard Rodrigues. During editing, Maragos and Strichart worked on different chapters and stayed in constant communication to keep character dialogue consistent. The English script's tone was inspired by Queen & Country, a comic series written by Greg Rucka. In 2015, Maragos said Radiant Historia was his favorite localization project up to that point, as it was easier than most other games he had worked on. The game was released in North America on February 22, 2011. After its release, it became rare, so Atlus printed more copies in 2012 because fans wanted it. Radiant Historia was not released in Europe.
The setting and world were created by Takayashiki, who worked closely with Konishi. The main writer was Yoh Haduki, who had previously written scenarios for Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor and Growlanser Wayfarer of Time. Additional writers were Souzou Tonami and Kazuhito Okayama. Takayashiki's original idea was for a historical drama with alternate timelines, which Konishi said would need many characters. While other details were not decided yet, Takayashiki was already thinking about time travel. An early idea was to include the theme of immortality, which led to the main character being an ageless sword instead of a living person. After talking with Atlus, Takayashiki was persuaded to make the protagonist a human time traveler. Their discussion also changed Takayashiki's original ending idea of a ruined world.
Takayashiki first planned for sixteen endings across four different countries, but Atlus said this was not possible. He kept the branching story by cutting the number of countries in half and creating the Alternate timeline. Making the alternate timeline caused problems during the later writing stages. The story kept the feel of a historical drama from Takayashiki's original plan, creating a storyline where no one was clearly right or wrong. The game's title was created by Atlus staff: "Radiant" referred to Stocke's mission across time to restore the world's light, while "Historia" came from the word "History." It was one of many suggested titles with a similar meaning. When creating the branching timelines, Takayashiki used a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to map out and track the different timelines. The initial story was written in two months, but due to changes and adjustments to connected timelines, as well as removing two of the proposed countries, it took six months to finish the final story and dialogue.
Konishi designed all the main characters with clear silhouettes so players could easily recognize them. Based on input from Atlus staff, Konishi improved his early designs. Both Stocke and Eruca were originally meant to be supporting characters, as the main character was still going to be a sword. After consulting with Atlus, the characters became the main protagonists. Stocke was originally a plain-looking assassin dressed all in black, described by Konishi as a mix of typical "cool" game character traits. When he became the main character, Konishi changed his main color to red, reworked his hair so it did not cover his eyes, and made his uniform more military-style. Although it was considered to let players rename Stocke, the team decided against it after reviewing the script multiple times.
Eruca was the first character Konishi designed, and it was hard for him to decide what type of clothing she should wear. She was intended to have long hair like princess characters, but short hair was chosen because of hardware limits and to give her a unique look. Another change was Stocke's initial supporting characters Raynie and Marco. Stocke was originally going to be with two generic units, but Hirata thought this would hurt the player experience, so new characters were added. These characters were designed to have different personalities to make the party lively during the opening parts. The character Rosch went through many redesigns during development, while Gafka was meant to leave a strong impression on players. The Beastkind designs showed their role as forest
Reception
The game received "generally favorable reviews" from Metacritic, a website that collects reviews, with a score of 85 out of 100 based on 30 critic reviews. It was ranked as the third best-reviewed DS title of 2011. Because of its story and gameplay, many critics compared it to classic role-playing games from older gaming systems. Some also noted that the game made bold choices compared to other recent RPGs.
Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu praised the many choices in the story and the challenging battles. Game Informer’s Joe Juba said the story and time travel mechanic made the game feel different from traditional RPGs, even though it had a typical structure. Dale North of Destructoid gave general praise to the story and graphics and enjoyed the battle system, though some boss battles were frustrating. GamesTM was less positive about the story and time travel mechanics but liked the battle system. In an import review for Eurogamer, Chris Schilling called it one of the best DS role-playing titles but criticized its linear structure.
Shiva Stella of GameSpot believed Radiant Historia would become a classic in the genre. IGN’s Audrey Drake praised the story and battle system but disliked the need to repeat events to explore all timeline options. James Jones of Nintendo World Report said the game should be on the must-own list for RPG fans and called it a fitting end to Atlus’s support of the DS platform. Mike Moehnke of RPGamer said the game was a good purchase for genre fans despite some issues with its presentation and pacing.
The game’s story was praised for handling time travel and its dark tone, even though some critics found the branching paths and need to switch between timelines confusing. The time travel mechanic and its interface were generally praised, though some reviewers found it made the game feel too linear. The battle system was described as both fun and challenging because of its positional system and enemy tactics. GamesTM called it “one of the most engaging and rewarding battle systems since Final Fantasy XIII.” The graphics were more divisive, with some praising their 16-bit style and others calling them low-quality or lacking variety. Shimomura’s score was praised, though Juba noted the small number of music tracks.
Perfect Chronology received a score of 85 out of 100 from Metacritic based on 44 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews" and being the highest-rated 3DS game of the year. Famitsu praised the new story content and voice acting. By contrast, C. J. Andriessen of Destructoid said the new content was not well connected to the main story, while Neal Ronaghan of Nintendo World Report said it made the story too complicated. Jeremy Parish of Polygon believed the 3DS remake gave the game a chance to be noticed after its original release. Cody Perez of Game Revolution praised the story, combat, graphics, soundtrack, and new content. Miguel Conception of GameSpot enjoyed the game overall and called the remake a good purchase for newcomers and owners of the original.
When it was released, Radiant Historia debuted in sixth place on game sales charts with over 32,800 units sold, being the second highest new release after Fallout: New Vegas. It sold about 44% of its initial shipment. By the end of the year, it had sold over 56,500 units. In North America, the game reached the top of DS sales charts. The following month, it dropped to third place.
Perfect Chronology debuted in Japan at #1, selling 21,429 units and pushing Nintendo Switch exclusive Arms to #2 after two weeks at the top. According to data from North America’s NPD Group, the game was the third best-selling 3DS game in the region during February 2018. In the United Kingdom, Perfect Chronology entered the 3DS gaming charts at eighth place.
In IGN’s "Best of 2011" awards, the game was nominated for "Best 3DS/DS Story" and "Best 3DS/DS Role-Playing Game." Nintendo Life gave it an honorable mention for their Game of the Year award. RPGFan gave it the "Best Traditional RPG" award (tied with The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky), while editor Neal Chandran chose it as his pick for "Best RPG." Game Informer gave it the "Best Old-School Homage" award. Samantha Nelson of The A.V. Club chose it as her staff pick for Game of the Year. RPGamer placed the game third for the RPG of the Year award.