Atlus has announced Radiant Historia for release in the U.S., a new DS RPG that sends players through the timestream.
Since finishing Chrono Trigger in 1995, I’ve been pining for a new RPG that uses time-travel in a compelling way. Atlus will finally be providing one early next year with Radiant Historia, a Nintendo DS RPG whose name makes it sound like a spiritual sequel to the PS2’s Radiata Stories.
Indeed, Radiant Historia was developed by Radiata Stories staffers, but alongside members of Atlus’s Shin Megami Tensei teams. Its Japanese version got a 34/40 from Famitsu magazine, which is a very respectable score, so it could be a title worth saving some of your holiday money for.
Atlus hints towards Historia‘s Chrono Trigger-esque nature by saying it channels “the heart and soul of fan favorite 16-bit RPG classics.” Players will travel back and forth through time in a “steampunk adventure” that sees main character Stocke discovering the nexus of time through a book called the White Chronicle. History’s course has gone awry, and Stocke is the only one that can put things back the way they’re meant to be.
Players will alter time and then travel into the future to see how their choices affect it, all the while trying to prevent a worldwide disaster. You can apparently even re-do choices if you don’t like their results. The game’s battle system is turn-based with players able to perform flashy combos using the various types of skills available depending on the positioning of enemies.
Atlus has already proven itself as a producer of great DS RPGs, but Radiant Historia could be one of the company’s best. At the least, it’ll let us travel through time again, and everybody with a DeLorean knows how fun that is. Look for it in stores, with an included CD from composer Yoko Shimomura, on February 22, 2011.
Published: Nov 22, 2010 09:01 pm