Radiata Stories

Radiata Stories (ラジアータ ストーリーズ) is a from developer. It is published by in the  and. The game centers mainly around Jack Russell, son of a successful and dragonslayer. Only Jack is directly controllable by the player, the other 176 characters can be controlled indirectly via commands from Russell and the use of the Link System (s). The game also features a Day/Night system, with character acting in accordance with their own schedules.

Leveling Up
Like many role playing games, leveling up can make the fights easier. One of the unique things about this game is the ability to duel characters. You don't have to go out into the world or a dungeon to find a fight. Just kick somebody. If you kick somebody twice, they should fight you one-on-one. Some characters won't duel, so if they keep saying the same thing, try somebody else. You can only duel someone once per day. Fortunately, they don't seem to remember that you kicked them, other than a brief comment immediately after the fight. If you lose a duel, don't worry, the game isn't over, but you will have an HP of 1, so don't forget to heal (or talk to Miranda) before you get into a real fight.

When fighting in dungeons and in the world, you will notice that if you see more than one monster, that after the first fight, some of the other monsters may not be there. If you leave the area and come back, they will re-appear. In general, stronger monsters will be less likely to disappear than weaker ones, but it isn't always that way.

If you do a lot of levelling up like I do, then you can pretty much ignore all the strategy hints you read about for the boss fights. Just plow in and start hacking, telling your healer to concentrate on you, and it will be over in no time.

If you don't level up, then links will be more important. Using a link allows all members of your party to share the combined skills off everyone in your party. I only tend to use links when I need to learn a new skill, but that's me; you might like to experiment with links. There's no "one right way" to play this game; if you're having fun, then you're doing it the right way.

I like the Septem Cave the best for leveling up before the split. In the very early stages of the game it might be a challenge, but as long as you have a good spear, you should be able to get through that area just fine, especially if you have the "Prevent Freeze" skill equipped. When you are in the second part of the cave, just before the exit, you will run into a large iceburg. Once in a while, after it is defeated, there will be another larva-like monster. This is the rare Killer Queen, who will give you a lot of experience, gold, and berries if you defeat it. Be careful, though, because she is tough. Don't be afraid to use your volty on it. If you are at a low level, then you should start off in the sewers below Theater Vancoor. That is a good place to kill a few minutes, and pick up some gold and experience at the same time. Once you are strong enough, you can do whatever you need to do during the day, and then clear out Septem Cave, and get home before daybreak to save your game.

After the split, your best experience comes from battling members of the other group. If you pick the human path, use the Travel Pig to the Dark Elves location (Mikey won't fight you, but won't let you in, either.) Travel east, then southwest around the lake, and then head towards Fort Helencia. You can then use the pig to get to the Goblin village and wander around there. Towards the very end of the game, the Blood Orc homeland becomes available. You can get some great experience there.

What I often do during the non-human path is use the Travel Pig to Lupus Gate, and then walk from there to Earth Valley, taking all the side roads, including doubling back to the other gate at Radiata City. Be careful when you run into Godwin and Fernando (he is actually on the bridge); their volty blast can take out one of your characters. As long as it isn't Jack, that's not a problem, so if you see one of them flashing, just have Jack defend until he's beaten or has used his volty. When you get to Earth Valley, take the Travel Pig to the Tria Region and fight the troops around there. That should get you a lot of experience and money. I can usually level the entire party up a couple of levels each day.

Skills
One of the reasons you want to recruit characters is so that you can learn their skills. If you link with a character that has a skill that you don't currently have, then after some number of links you will learn that skill. Once you have learned the skill, you need to fight with it equipped some number of times in order to level up the skill. Leveling up doesn't require links, any fights will do. You can go down to the sewers under Theater Vancoor to get into a lot of easy fights. This is useful since the character you are trying to learn the skill from is probably a low level character. Since the monsters in that area stay fairly weak, the low level characters have a better chance to survive a fight. You can fill your party with characters having skills that you don't know yet, then equip yourself with Auto Cure and link your party together for each fight until you have learned the skills. Some skills are learned faster than others, so if you are in the sewers under Theater Vancoor, you can go to the first floor and swap out the skill you learned for another skill. You can keep this up until you learn all the available skills, or you run out of monsters in the basement. Remember that there are times when you don't want to go back to your house to sleep to force a new day.

The skills that I like the best are:


 * Auto Cure
 * You can learn this from Kain, Genius, or Stefan


 * When you start a new game (other than the first time), equip this skill and you will almost never get killed. You will be able to go into the dwarf caves on your own when a knight, and duel all the characters in Earth Valley.


 * When you set up your initial party, use links a lot with auto cure equipped so that each character keeps getting healed. This will let you level up your characters without having to spend a lot of time explicitly healing them.


 * Absorb HP
 * You can only learn this from Donkey


 * This skill heals you a percentage of the damage you do to the enemy. If you keep hitting fast enough and hard enough, you won't need healing very often.


 * Tri-Emblem
 * After you have completed the game and recruited Valkyrie, put her in your party and keep doing links until you learn this skill. It boosts all your parameters, and if you use links, it will boost your party's stats too.


 * If you don't have this skill, you can use King of Day or King of Night, as long as you remember to switch them when the time changes.


 * Full Power
 * You can learn this from Gruel, Fernando, Galvados,or Sebastian


 * Equip this skill just before you use your volty attack. It increases the damage. For stronger bosses, you might want to use Save Volty instead.


 * Save Volty
 * You can learn this from Curtis or Gobrey


 * Your volty attack won't use up all of your volty meter. Equip this skill just before you use your volty attack on a very powerful boss that will require multiple volty attacks. That way, you will be able to launch your next volty attack in less time than normal. You probably only want to use this for weaker bosses, if you have another boss fight coming up soon.


 * Fierce Defense
 * You can learn this from Edgar, Interlude, Leban, Leona, or Wal.


 * This skill will reduce the damage you take when you are blocking. If your enemy is about to use their volty attack, quickly use an herb to get to full HP, equip this skill, and hold down the "X" button. You should be able to survive the attack.


 * I use this skill to beat strong characters with fierce volty attacks like Gerald, Elwen, etc.


 * Status Cure
 * You can learn this from Ardoph, Flora, Morfinn, or Rika


 * This reduces the amount of time that you are inflicted with any status ailment. You might want to use "Stop Afflictions" to reduce the chances of getting afflicted, but if that doesn't work, you may not be able to switch to "Status Cure", which is why I tend to use this rather than the other.


 * 100t Body
 * You can learn this from David, Gabe, Jill, or Walter


 * This reduces the chances of you being knocked down. It will allow you to continue to attack rather than keep getting back up and attacking again. You probably want to instruct your healer to concentrate on you if you do this.


 * King of Day / Night
 * You can learn King of the Day from Elwen, and King of the Night from Nyx or Gawain


 * These skills increases your stats during the specified time period. If you don't have Tri-Element, then these are the ones you want to use. Just remember to switch to the other skill when the time changes.


 * If you need to attack a character that has one of these skills, it is a good idea to time it so that you fight them when their skill isn't in effect. (Fight Elwen at night, and Nyx during the day.)

There are lots of other skills, and you might prefer some others, depending on your fighting style.

More Detailed Sections

 * /Character Recruitment/
 * /Walkthrough early game
 * /Fairy Walkthrough
 * /Human Walkthrough