I’m about 5 hours into Radiant Historia
So, the story. You live on a continent that is gradually turning into desert. Two countries, Alicetel and Granorg, are at war over the remaining fertile land and resources. You play the part of Stock, an Alicetel soldier who comes into possession of the White Chronicle, a book that lets you go back into the past and change events. Guided by two mysterious twins, you embark on a journey to restore history to the way it should be. Once you find out there’s an evil party using the Black Chronicle to mess up history, it’s up to you to go back and forth across time and dimensions and set right what went wrong.
Okay, so far so good. But what’s a time/dimension travel story without gigantic plotholes? It’s only been 5 hours and I’ve already spotted one. See, the very first time you use your powers is to go back in time and save your teammates Marco and Rainey from death, right? At that time you’re gravely injured, and the injury doesn’t go away even when you go back in time. The twins explain that this is because “your time” is different from “the world’s time“. If you get hurt or killed, it affects you, not “the world”, so it won’t go away. That’s why if you die, you’re dead and you can’t go back and change that. Cool, awesome, makes sense.
But! Once you use your powers to bring back your teammates and keep playing, you discover that they have “their time” as well. If their level goes up or their HP goes down in a particular dimension, when you travel to the other one, they still keep their new level/status/abilities. But if they do have “their time“, how come you were able to save them from the dead? And if they don’t have “their time“, then they count as part of “The World”, which means they shouldn’t be able to travel back and forth with you in their current states. When you go back to the old timeline, they should revert to their lower levels and states, right?
And isn’t it funny how they never remark on it? Like, “wait, weren’t we at point so-and-so 5 minutes ago? How did we get halfway across the world in a few seconds? And why do I suddenly have all these new abilities?” Unless it’s a different Rainey and Marco in the old timeline, in which case how do they have the same levels and equipment? Or maybe the process of crossing over affects their memories too so they think they always were like that? Phew, I’m giving myself a headache just thinking about it. Maybe it’ll be explained later on, I’ve still got a long way to go.
Another thing about this time/dimension traveling stuff. It’s way too limited. I mean, yeah, they couldn’t just let you hop back and forth whenever you want. That would be too much for any programmer to handle. As it is right now, however, the story is largely on rails. You take 10 steps forward in Path A and realize you’re supposed to meet Character A but he’s dead in this timeline. So you go to Path B, prevent Character A’s death, and when you go back to Path A, he’s alive again and the story can go on. Because somehow the Character A in both worlds is one and the same person and yet somehow they’re not, so if A dies in one world he also dies in another. Unless he’s on your team, then he’s perfectly fine. The game’s quirky like that.
I’m liking the art, the character designs and the music so far and trying to keep an open mind about the story. I was going to post about the battle system as well, but I did stay up till 5am so I’m tired. Maybe tomorrow, we’ll see.
Don’t you think that would make the game ridiculously hard if you couldn’t keep your characters’ levels intact anywhere in the timeline? I don’t see that as a plot hole so much as a purposeful decision on the programmer’s part.
It’s a justified game design decision. It would be too complicated for them to keep track of the characters’ levels at every node in the story. That doesn’t stop if from being a plot hole, though.