Much Ado About Everything

I finished Radiata Stories yesterday.  Steven said “so soon?” but it’s more like “only now?”.  You see, the game is supposed to be short by RPG standards, around 20 hours, but I ended up playing it closer to 35 hours.  Yet I shouldn’t have done so, because I didn’t have much to show for it.

The game had a lot of potential, which I felt was wasted by utter lack of polish – for a Square Enix game this is unacceptable.  My main issue was the lack of balance.  A properly balanced game will provide reasonable guidance and equipment that a person that is not interested, capable or has no time to investigate every nook and cranny, still can finish the storyline without too much trouble.  Radiata Stories unfortunately makes it really hard to get by in certain parts of the game because it doesn’t provide basics – a balanced set of default characters and an easily accessible level up region with a save point nearby.  Given that the game mechanics are fairly different from most other japanese RPGs, it makes it really difficult to play unless you have the strategy guide, or a lot of time on your hands to discover things for yourself.  This feels like cheating – they made a short game and would make it last longer by forcing you to waste time on non-productive activities.  Of course, some people like trying to discover everything on their own but I believe they are in minority.  Those people should be given rewards for spending so much time with the game (e.g. kickass equipment or cool optional characters,
that help make boss battles a breeze) – but regular players shouldn’t be forced to do so.  The problem was made worse by the fact that freely available guides and FAQs for this game are severely lacking and full of incorrect information.

Humour was mostly good, and it’s a shame that I wasn’t able to lay back and enjoy it – because most of the time I was frustrated with getting my ass kicked far and having to replay at least half an hour worth of gameplay due to lack of savepoints.  Can you believe it, that usually there is only one savepoint at any given time, on the whole map?  A game that’s about humour shouldn’t be too difficult or otherwise unforgiving.  If this was a design decision, then somebody should be fired.  No, seriously, get them on the street so they can meditate upon their failures.  If this was a business decision (lack of time or money for development or QA), then it’s upper management that should be kicked out on the street; a company such as Square Enix should never spoil their name by publishing unfinished games.  Ultimately, the game didn’t know if it want to be taken seriously or humorously – it wanted both, thankfully not at the same time.  While I think the story itself worked out ok, the game overall was only above average.