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JRPG Spotlight Vol 2: Radia Wars Chronicle (FC)

GhaleonQ

Member
JRPG Spotlight Vol 2: Radia Wars Chronicle

radia_senki__reimeihen_japon.jpg


Title: Radia Senki: Reimeihen
Platform: Famicom
Publisher: Tecmo
Developer: Tecmo
Release Date: 15th November 1991


What's this game?
Radia Wars Chronicle/Radia Senki: Reimeihen/ラディア戦記 — 黎明編 — is a Japan-only Nintendo Entertainment System game developed and published by Tecmo. Uh, let's see.

It's fine, I suppose. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HI1BD9_FKU That's a pretty cutscene for 1991. Speaking of that, it was released in a post-Super Nintendo Entertainment System world and a world in which Crystalis demonstrated how huge an action RPG could be. The story's about an amnesia-addled hero who needs to stop an evil emperor. Each character has 4 techs. *sigh* For what reason was I writing about this, again?


What's so interesting about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldz9-Cw-emQ#t=3m12s
Oh, because it's FINAL FANTASY XII ON THE NES.

Feel free to substitute your favorite Tri-Ace or Tales Studio game. I think Final Fantasy XII's the most apt. You control a hero who himself fights, who sets tactics and strategies for his clan both in and out of battle, who is rewarded for using multiple weapon and spell types in relation to enemies, who earns loot that he can sell or heal with instead of money, who eschews random battles for tile-based (read: Chrono Trigger) ones, and who has a bunny lady in his party. *checks Hardcore Gaming 101* Scratch that last part.

Their base innovation should be enough to make this a landmark title. For God's sake, this is an NES game with 4-player, action-based number crunching. What makes it a personal favorite is its - say it with me! - CHARM! Your "escape" option is called "trick," in which you play dead to get monsters to flee from you. The inn's always free to stay in because, you know, you're saving the world. Your party rearranges constantly to get you to experiment, which brings fond memories of Final Fantasy IX to me. The
The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening
story's sweet in an NES-era way, too.

The soundtrack's adequate, but I don't think they placed their best sound team on it. Final Fantasy III's absolutely decimated it a year earlier, for instance, but it sets a tone not unlike those of Quintet's games. Surprisingly, I don't think it's very Tecmo-like. The main issue is that the memory kept tracks to 1-minute loops in nearly all cases. On world maps and in long battles, tracks can get tedious. I can upload my gamerip if that's allowed. Try 05 - Salvo, 12 - Loneliness, But Not Despair, 18 - Great Castle, 21 - Draft, 32 - Radiate, and 36 - In Dreams And In My Heart. The graphics, writing, and characterization aren't much to celebrate, but they're hardly mediocre. Still, this is a gameplay-driven experience.

There's an English patch, there are multiple English walkthroughs, and it's 1 of my favorite games on the system. Try it!


Who made this?
I can't say much about the developers, since this was in Japan's lovely "anonymous developers" period. It appears that the Ninja Gaiden team did most of the work, though, and that's an incredibly small team.


References
Strangely, this game's been written about a lot, yet its name hasn't spread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radia_Senki
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/radia/radia.htm
http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/nes/radia/index.shtml
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/data/575930.html
http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/11513428
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAiJmIn9ZdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29P-0I1da6g


JRPG Spotlight Archives
JRPG Spotlight Vol 1: Dark Half (SFC)
 

Kishgal

Banned
This looks pretty cool. I'd never heard of it before.

I thought the threads were going to be coordinated, though, in order to avoid clashes and floods... I know I had been planning to make one myself, as well, and I mentioned it to duckroll. I figured he would coordinate them since it was his idea. I was just waiting for the okay from him. :eek:
 
I just pray this doesnt turn into a "why I hate Final fantasy 12" thread T_T

The wiki entries are all very interesting, but what strikes me the most is their volume. You can tell someone really loved the game in order to have the passion to create all of this information.
 

duckroll

Member
I appreciate what you're doing, and this is certainly a unique looking game that I don't have first hand experience either. I'm definitely going to check out more about the game based on this.

But I agree with Kishgal, we should formulate some ground rules:

- It'll be helpful if we had a fixed format on how we present a game each time. This is important because if we want to make this an on-going feature for those interested on the forum, it needs to have continuity and formatting. Each thread should have a similar basic format with neatly separated sections which are informative about the different aspects of the game.

- It'll also be nice to have each new thread also have an archived list of links to all the previous threads in chronological order at the end, allowing new readers to be able to reference and read previous entries.

- We definitely need to have coordination on who is creating the next thread and a sort of semi-fixed time table. It's important that this doesn't turn into a free for all thing where threads can pop up any time from anyone with no warning. Then it becomes just any other thread as opposed to an ongoing community contribution column.

- Oh and this is just a piece of advice on your writing style, don't take it the wrong way: Have more self confidence on what you're sharing, and don't sound so self-depreciative. It makes it sorta depressing to read when you keep adding comments which seem to imply you feel like you're wasting your time. You're not. Also, I'll recommend to avoid making negative comments on how certain people feel about different games (like FFXII, SO, Tales, etc), and instead describing stuff in a more informative but narrative fashion. There's nothing to be gained in making someone annoyed while reading your article simply because it seems like you're insulting them. :)


Otherwise, it's a pretty solid pick, and exactly the sort of titles I was looking for in this spotlight series. Thanks.
 

Syril

Member
I like that you can literally sleep and save at any bed you find, even in a villain's lair. It even has that "talk to the party to figure out what to do" option like in Phantasy Star.
 

GhaleonQ

Member
duckroll, my writeup did include all of your sections, just not in the same order and not segmented. Would you prefer I change it?

Also, I was already going to add in yours at the end. I just had to search for it.

As for your last point, I was being sarcastic as a setup for THE AMAZINGNESS THAT IS FINAL FANTASY XII ON THE NES. That wasn't sincere deprecation at all. I made it less acerbic, now. The end bits are just to highlight that this is a gameplay-driven experience, not aesthetics-driven.
 

duckroll

Member
GhaleonQ said:
duckroll, my writeup did include all of your sections, just not in the same order and not segmented. Would you prefer I change it?

Also, I was already going to add in yours at the end. I just had to search for it.

As for your last point, I was being sarcastic as a setup for THE AMAZINGNESS THAT IS FINAL FANTASY XII ON THE NES. That wasn't sincere deprecation at all. I made it less acerbic, now. The end bits are just to highlight that this is a gameplay-driven experience, not aesthetics-driven.

Yeah I know the write up contains all the right details. I just meant that we should discuss and decide on a sort of template so to speak, so in future each entry has a continuous sort of feel regardless of who's writing it.

This is a very impressive game for 8-bit tech I have to say. It's interesting that the Ninja Gaiden team used their cinematic experience to create a full blown party based action RPG on the NES. It's a shame that they didn't continue on this path in the 16-bit era.
 

GhaleonQ

Member
duckroll said:
Yeah I know the write up contains all the right details. I just meant that we should discuss and decide on a sort of template so to speak, so in future each entry has a continuous sort of feel regardless of who's writing it.

This is a very impressive game for 8-bit tech I have to say. It's interesting that the Ninja Gaiden team used their cinematic experience to create a full blown party based action RPG on the NES. It's a shame that they didn't continue on this path in the 16-bit era.

P.M. me a message about template or criteria, and I'll edit it onto the end of the post. (Or can you do that yourself?)

And, definitely. Definitely. I was looking for sales information to see if they chose their path based on arcade success or if they just wanted to stretch a bit.
 

mochuuu

PSN Community Mgr.
reallly cool. wondering what would have happened had this title recieve more attention. based on what I've seen, Tecmo could have become an RPG house a la Squaresoft/Enix.

Awesome
 

randomkid

Member
That is a nice looking intro. And all the music sounds great to me too.

I love RPGs that are released at the very end of a system's life, they're always overlooked but tend to be fondly remembered technical marvels.

Eager to read future threads from Kishgal and others too, I was mainly worried that these threads would just die ignominiously or never appear at all, "flooding" of awesome write-ups doesn't seem like a problem to me!
 

GhaleonQ

Member
I'm glad people have enjoyed the ideas of the 2 games chosen thus far! This one's not that long (and you can speed up grinding with some emulaltors), so people should definitely give it a chance.

randomkid, look up Just Breed. I'm on board with your opinion, and that's a stellar example.
 

Nairume

Banned
Man, I really loved this game back in the day, though I never got around to finishing it. It was kind of neat having a Star Ocean like game on the NES.

Just Breed was another really fun game. I remember coming across a glitch that caused my main character to jump up 30 levels after a battle.
 

GhaleonQ

Member
Nairume, any other good recommendations on the NES or elsewhere?

Celine said:
Also I think you mean Quintet and not Quartet :lol

What, are you blind or something? *cough* I blame Mendelssohn.

Freyjadour said:
Man, after your Moon write up I was expecting a paperback. Disappointed!

(I did read all of that write up by the way :p)

My audience must wait for my next overlong analysis! (I might take a video game class with an intelligent professor at my college, so I might use it as an excuse to do the other games.)
 

GhaleonQ

Member
duckroll said:
There, I fixed the formatting. Hope you don't mind that I just edited it in.

I switched it up a bit to better match your questions. Perfect. That's set, now.

Celine said:
Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru for GB and Marvelous for Super Famicom.

Great choices. Marvelous: Another Treasure Island's in my longlist.
 

Celine

Member
GhaleonQ said:
Nairume, any other good recommendations on the NES or elsewhere?
I forgot to suggest in the other thread two mostly unknown games from Nintendo albeit not pure JRPG:
Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru for GB and Marvelous for Super Famicom.

I'm really curious to hear about them and I believe Nintendo fans could be interested in them too.
 

Nairume

Banned
GhaleonQ said:
Nairume, any other good recommendations on the NES or elsewhere?
Duckroll already covered Dark Lord, right? That had a sequel on the SNES called Dark Law which was pretty good.

As far as other NES games go:

-Cosmo Police Galivan: It was Metroidvania before it was cool. Stay away from the SNES sequel, though. It's a terrible beat'em'up.

-Chaos World: Initially seems like a Dragon Quest clone by Natsume, but then you see that the battle system is entirely automated with formations and tactics. Plus, it has the quest system from the Final Fantasy Tactics games, where you can send party members, inactive or active, off on side jobs.

-STED: A decent Phantasy Star clone. I seem to recall it being infamous a few years back for nobody who spoke english having ever claimed to have finished it. Even the guy who did the fan translation never played through it entirely.

-Sweet Home: Everybody probably knows about this one, but I'll recommend it just in case.

And, hmm, SNES

Magna Braban: Combat is AI based, but with multiple settings so it works fairly well. I think the main draw here was that the game had a rather hilarious opening and probably keeps the humor going.

Cyber Knight and Cyber Knight 2: SciFi JRPGs where you pilot mechs. Combat is a lite-tactics kind of thing, though you explore like any standard RPG.

Treasure of the Rudras: This one is probably a little more well know, but I'll recommend it in case. A neat Square RPG that covers "the final week of the human age" (or something of the sort) as viewed by several different characters, who's paths cross every now or then. It also featured a spell system that was based around you entering words to create new spells.

Demon of LaPlace: Kind of like Sweet Home, I think. I never played much of it and haven't in a while.

Live-A-Live: One of my favorite SNES RPGs. You place a number of different scenarios, SaGa Frontier style. Each of them takes place in a different time period, and they all have really interesting ideas to them. The Ninja chapter, for example, is kind of like Metal Gear, just with turn based battles instead of shooting.

Dual Orb 2: Not much to really say about it. It's a standard JRPG with a Breath of Fire style combat system. It has a fun story and a decent weapon system.

FEDA: Emblem of Justice: Kind of like Shining Force, just on the SNES.

Hiouden: A strategy RPG that used the SNES mouse
 
Demon of LaPlace is pretty cool for it's novelty, but it's more of a traditional RPG than Sweet Home ever was.

if anyone's willing to wade through japanese text, Hungry Ghosts for the PS2 is a good King's Field kind of game
 

GhaleonQ

Member
Those are interesting choices above, now that I've looked them up. I recognize some of them from that great recent obscura topic.
 

duckroll

Member
flintstryker said:
Treasure Hunter G is also worth looking into.

No it's not. :)

For the record, the next spotlight is taken. If anyone has a good idea for the one after that (probably end of May) feel free to PM me.
 

duckroll

Member
It's not about whether it's a good game or not. There's just nothing particularly unique or noteworthy about it. Plus, tons of people know about it.
 

Nairume

Banned
duckroll said:
It's not about whether it's a good game or not. There's just nothing particularly unique or noteworthy about it. Plus, tons of people know about it.
I'd say the combat system was still kind of fresh at the time (just not totally unique) and maybe it was noteworthy for how it looked, but that was about it. But, yeah, I'd expect it to be pretty well known at this point.
 
Woot, Vol. 2.

Like many others, I'd never heard of this game before. To see a battle system like this in a Famicom game is interesting.
 
This is fascinating. :D

Looking at this game, it's kind of interesting to me how little this style of battle has actually been used in JRPGs. Based on the video, I think you're right that FFXII is a much more apt comparison than Star Ocean -- the battles take place in the same level map that you walk around in and seem more oriented around tactical changes in behavior (rather than special moves or combos like Star Ocean focuses on.)

I actually liked the music quite a bit in the video. I was just saying to my wife while we watched it that I'm not sure if I just always love the sound of anything that uses the NES soundchip because it's actually objectively aesthetically appealing or if I just think it is because I love so many things that were made using it. :lol
 

GhaleonQ

Member
charlequin said:
I actually liked the music quite a bit in the video. I was just saying to my wife while we watched it that I'm not sure if I just always love the sound of anything that uses the NES soundchip because it's actually objectively aesthetically appealing or if I just think it is because I love so many things that were made using it. :lol

I'm still not sure if Crystal Castles is a good band or not. *laughs*

1 thing that didn't occur in the last topic were impressions. Has anyone tried it since?
 
Nicely done---I feel this adequately justifies my many rants. :lol Definitely looking forward to seeing what other buried treasures are yet to come.
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Nairume said:
-STED: A decent Phantasy Star clone. I seem to recall it being infamous a few years back for nobody who spoke english having ever claimed to have finished it. Even the guy who did the fan translation never played through it entirely.

I helped out with the fan translation of this game, and nope, never got very far. The game requires an insane level of grinding, and the dungeon maps are massive. I've come across a few fairly detailed FAQs, where English players have made it very far in it. A very interesting game, though very tough and punishing for players.
 

Micius

Member
Nairume said:
Duckroll already covered Dark Lord, right? That had a sequel on the SNES called Dark Law which was pretty good.

As far as other NES games go:

-Cosmo Police Galivan: It was Metroidvania before it was cool. Stay away from the SNES sequel, though. It's a terrible beat'em'up.

-Chaos World: Initially seems like a Dragon Quest clone by Natsume, but then you see that the battle system is entirely automated with formations and tactics. Plus, it has the quest system from the Final Fantasy Tactics games, where you can send party members, inactive or active, off on side jobs.

-STED: A decent Phantasy Star clone. I seem to recall it being infamous a few years back for nobody who spoke english having ever claimed to have finished it. Even the guy who did the fan translation never played through it entirely.

-Sweet Home: Everybody probably knows about this one, but I'll recommend it just in case.

And, hmm, SNES

Magna Braban: Combat is AI based, but with multiple settings so it works fairly well. I think the main draw here was that the game had a rather hilarious opening and probably keeps the humor going.

Cyber Knight and Cyber Knight 2: SciFi JRPGs where you pilot mechs. Combat is a lite-tactics kind of thing, though you explore like any standard RPG.

Treasure of the Rudras: This one is probably a little more well know, but I'll recommend it in case. A neat Square RPG that covers "the final week of the human age" (or something of the sort) as viewed by several different characters, who's paths cross every now or then. It also featured a spell system that was based around you entering words to create new spells.

Demon of LaPlace: Kind of like Sweet Home, I think. I never played much of it and haven't in a while.

Live-A-Live: One of my favorite SNES RPGs. You place a number of different scenarios, SaGa Frontier style. Each of them takes place in a different time period, and they all have really interesting ideas to them. The Ninja chapter, for example, is kind of like Metal Gear, just with turn based battles instead of shooting.

Dual Orb 2: Not much to really say about it. It's a standard JRPG with a Breath of Fire style combat system. It has a fun story and a decent weapon system.

FEDA: Emblem of Justice: Kind of like Shining Force, just on the SNES.

Hiouden: A strategy RPG that used the SNES mouse

I recognize an awful lot of these from AGTP... :lol
 

Monroeski

Unconfirmed Member
duckroll said:
No it's not. :)

For the record, the next spotlight is taken. If anyone has a good idea for the one after that (probably end of May) feel free to PM me.
No recommendations for any specific games, but ones that have some type of English version available (whether through actual english release, or an english patch as in the OP here) would be appreciated, though of course not required.
 

Nairume

Banned
I think they've been doing a pretty good job of picking out games like that thus far.

Of course, watch the next game be Chaos Breaker or something :lol
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
ramsus said:
Linda³ Kanzenban (Sega Saturn) would be an interesting choice. Maybe if I had some spare time :/.

Fuck yeah, always wanted to play this after reading an old review by Alan Kwan.
 
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