![]() People like Raynie and Marco are actually bred to be disposable, being fed the notion that war is a noble and patriotic thing just so they can fight and die to make people like Heiss, Protea, and Hugo more powerful. The story keeps framing this feeling as tragic, showing how it was easily manufactured to be now easily manipulated. These characters talk about patriotism as if it is the act of repaying a favor: their country was good to them, providing food, a roof, and a purpose, and now they think it’s only right of them to feel grateful and enlist. And he’s not alone: Marco quickly agrees with him while Rayne adds, “ My country is dear to me, and this is the only way I know how to show it.” When asked what war means for him, Stocke’s answer is a simple but alarming one: “ War is my job,” he says. Radiant Historia is deeply concerned with the mindset of a soldier. He’s directly opposed to Stocke and his friends, especially the young captain Rosh, whose first concern is always his nation and his comrades. When Hugo is called a “politician” at the beginning of the game, the word is being used in its most pejorative sense: he’s being described as cunning, treacherous, and self-serving – a man capable of crafting schemes to undermine even Alistel’s greatest soldiers if that is going to lead to personal gain. Meanwhile, Alistel is a theocracy, governed by the words of the elusive prophet Noah, who doesn’t make public appearances, having his orders conveyed by his mouthpiece, the ambitious general Hugo. The disdain her own generals show for her is telling: on their first scene, Selvan and Dias keep referring to their queen as “wench”, showing how her political power is rapidly vanishing. Queen Protea – with her striking purple hair – is depicted as a cruel person, who enjoys gladiators tearing themselves apart for sport and doesn’t hesitate to make her subjects pay with their lives for even the smallest failing. Granorg is a monarchy that is suffering from the rule of a self-indulgent, egotistical, vain ruler. ![]() We have two troubled kingdoms in Radiant Historia. As the events unfold, this motivation will become a recurrent one: Stocke will be traveling through time constantly to prevent the deaths of those dear to him, trying to stop increasingly devastating situations from happening. ![]() The extraction mission, however, marks the deaths of his new colleagues, Raynie and Marco, which pushes him to use the powers of the White Chronicle without thinking twice: the protagonist’s initial goal is to alter history so they can survive. He rarely shows, but Stocke cares deeply about the people under his command – which puts him in direct opposition to Heiss – and he’s always doing whatever is possible to keep them alive and well. Stocke, living up to his name, is a stoic young man, who is reserved but resolute. When the mission goes awry, Stocke finds himself in Historia, “ a world nestled in the gulf of time,” and discovers that the chronicle records history and gives him the ability to travel to specific points in time. Stocke is an intelligence agent of Alistel who one day is assigned to an extraction mission by his supervisor, the Machiavellian Heiss, who entrusts him with an enigmatic book called the White Chronicle. The setting is “ a decaying world in which everything is slowly being engulfed by sand,” which leads its two greatest nations, Alistel and Granorg, to war over the few fertile lands that there are left. ![]() Radiant Historia is a fantastic JRPG that offers not only an innovative and complex battle system but also a great story, packed with tragic characters and interesting twists, that is only marred by a bit of bloat in the 3DS version. ![]()
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