Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology Review (3DS)

In the land of Vainqueur, the kingdoms of Alistel and Granorg are at war. The Sand Plague, which turns people and environments completely into sand, spreads, and Alistel believes that Granorg is behind the desertification in an attempt to gain full control.

 

Stocke, a veteran soldier of Alistel, is sent on a mission to collect a spy from Granorg as his info may be used to prevent further suffering. Things go quickly wrong when the spy and allies are murdered, and Stocke is left with little hope of survival. That’s when a new book given to him by his boss, Heiss, glows and sucks him into a world known as Historia. Armed with the knowledge that he can go back in time, it’s up to Stocke to find the one timeline where Granorg is defeated, and the Sand Plague is stopped.

 

perfect chronology review

 

Having originally released in 2010, Perfect Chronology is a remake of the DS game with brand new content, voice-acting, art, characters and more. I’ve never played the original and so being able to experience Radiant Historia at its very best is a delight — that said, buying DLC to access the original art is disappointing, especially as they’re so vastly different.

 

The story makes good, clear use of time travel, and never does it feel overly complicated or heavy-handed. Perfect Chronology features an emotional, intense story and when things really get going, you’ll find it hard to put down.

 

perfect chronology review

 

Perfect Chronology features an emotional, intense story and when things really get going, you’ll find it hard to put down.

The turn-based gameplay has a few cool mechanics I’m not familiar with in other games, and I enjoy its stacking feature. Enemies are placed on a 3×3 grid, and if they’re near each other then you can use an ability to knock them into each other and then continue your attack — this means that you attack both enemies at once, with no drop off in damage.

 

Positioning is vital to slay groups of enemies quickly as they do pack a punch. You can freely change your turn with another character’s – or even an enemy’s – turn, so you can create combos utilising all of your team.

 

perfect chronology review

 

 

Jumping through time is made simple as you can access the Historia via any save point, and then you simply pick a node to go back to a specific time – there’s a story summary at each node, in case you can’t remember by name alone.

 

It’s made clear which routes are dead ends and which ones have been completed, making it very easy to get to new content. You can access a recap on the story at any time, which is helpful considering how hard it can be to keep track of several paths.

 

perfect chronology review

 

In all ways, Perfect Chronology is a delight to listen to.

Radiant Historia has updated character portraits, presumably an attempt to appeal to more people, which are much more colourful and bubbly. That’s not to say I prefer it to the original art style – I think they’re both great – but, again, it’s a shame that one is DLC. All CG artwork is gorgeous, and the 2D sprites are lively and detailed – it’s retro-inspired, but it’s much more fluid in motion.

 

perfect chronology review

 

The 3DS may be seeing less games nowadays, but Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology shows that the system isn’t running out of quality games any time soon.

In terms of new content outside of the expanded story, the English voice-acting cannot be missed. All main characters are fully-voiced, and they each do an outstanding job. The likes of Xander Mobus, Erica Mendez, Lauren Landa and Benjamin Diskin lend their voices to this remake, and the game is all the better for it. Composer Yoko Shimomura, of Kingdom Hearts fame, returns to tweak the soundtrack a little, and it’s very obviously her work — and it’s amazing. In all ways, Perfect Chronology is a delight to listen to.

 

Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology is a game that’s deserved its remake and it’s great to see Atlus revisit the game, especially for those who initially missed out. The 3DS may be seeing less games nowadays, but Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology shows that the system isn’t running out of quality games any time soon.

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