History Videogame / RadiataStories

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: To get the leaders of the warrior, mage, and priest guild, you have to recruit everyone in the guild, then talk to (and fight in the case of the former two) the leader of the guild. For the thieves guild, you have to recruit the other three leaders, then do a short quest that ends with fighting the thieves guild leader. Recruiting everyone else in the guild is optional.

''Radiata Stories'' is a [[RolePlayingGame role-playing game]] developed by [[Creator/TriAce tri-Ace]] and published by Creator/SquareEnix for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 in 2005. The game is notable for its large number of distinct [=NPCs=], each of whom have their own lives, lifestyles, jobs, personalities, homes, dialogues, and schedules. It's also notable for its high content of humor despite having a pretty serious story.

** Additionally, the necklace Nocturne and his gang steal from Belflower/Arnold during the royal bodyguards mission may just seem like a random piece of jewellry to later pawn off until it makes an appearance later [[spoiler:as a "good luck charm" from Lucian to Jack before the latter sets out to slay the fire dragon to be used as an orb to seal away said dragon.]]

* ChekhovsGun: The orb that Jack obtains during the Stone of Miracles mission. Even though it wasn't the stone he was originally after, Kain believes that it will utterly alter Jack's fate. [[spoiler:The orb is later used to either slay the wind dragon (on the human path) or the fire dragon (on the non-human path), even if the latter wasn't Jack's intention.]]

* BonusBoss: [[spoiler:The four Elemental Dragons, Radian, Cairn Russell, [[VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile Lenneth Valkyrie, Lezard]], [[SeriesMascot Gabriel Celesta, the Ethereal Queen]], and Quasar, the Gold Dragon]] can be fought if the player wants additional challenge.

* {{Bishonen}}: Felix, Franklin, Lucian, and Gil, to name a few.

* BraggingRightsReward: Recruiting Elwen before the post-game is this. You have to defeat her in one on one combat, and her level is a fair amount higher than what you need to be at to finish the main story. And unlike most characters you can recruit by defeating (such as Gerald earlier on), you cannot cheese Elwen with poison or fire sacks as she is immune to all status effects that would be of any use to you. So you either have to cheese her with Tsuchinoko Dumplings (which are very rare) and Volty Attacks or simply be leveled enough to defeat her on normal terms. Either way, if you can recruit her before defeating the final boss, you almost certainly don't need her to defeat the final boss.

* PeekABangs: Lily and her mentor, Iris, have these. It's fitting for a void member.

* WhipItGood: Iris fights with whips.

After one successful mission, what should be a simple FetchQuest goes awry and [[GameBreakingInjury Ridley suffers a debilitating injury to the point where she's bedridden]]. As a consequence for their failure to protect her, both Jack and Ganz are expelled from the knighthood because of her KnighTemplarParent. From there, they both try to join Theater Vancoor, the warrior guild, but Ganz fails the test and [[FishOutOfWater ends up in the Void Community]] (the thief guild) instead.

After one successful mission, what should be a simple FetchQuest goes awry and [[GameBreakingInjury Ridley suffers a debilitating injury to the point where she's bedridden]]. As a consequence for their failure to protect her, both Jack and Ganz are expelled from the knighthood because of her OverprotectiveDad. From there, they both try to join Theater Vancoor, the warrior guild, but Ganz fails the test and [[FishOutOfWater ends up in the Void Community]] (the thief guild) instead.

* StoryBranchFavoritism: Despite the game having two routes that generally are equal in content, the non-human route is the only route where Jack learns many of the game's big reveals, develops more as a character, reunites with both Ridley and Ganz, gets to use his fathers sword, and becomes an OfficialCouple with Ridley, making it clearly the route that is meant to be the true ending. By contrast, the human route allows for more unique gameplay elements such as having Jack romance another character, as well as having the largest cast of party members to use, at the cost of the story being less explained and being simpler, with the ending being a more concrete and easier to grasp, but more somber than the non-human ending.

* TokenEvilTeammate: Cross serves as this on the Human path, though he never properly joins your party. Though still an elitist asshole, Cross doesn't commit the evil acts he does in the Non-Human path like [[spoiler:murdering Dynas]], and at the end [[spoiler:he sacrifices his life to warn Jack that Lucian is actually the Silver Dragon, when he could have played dead and probably survived]].

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Not necessarily big spoilers or anything, but one of the trailers spoils [[spoiler:Jack walking. This is ''the human side ending''. There's also a scene where he draws his sword in an epic fashion manner is the final battle of the human side.]]
** The trailer also features a soundbite of [[spoiler:Aphelion declaring his intent to destroy Jack]] near the end of the game, before the final battle.

** Lily is similarly aloof and dismissive of Jack, yet she's one of the "date options" for the fireworks.

* StoryBranchFavoritism: Despite the game having two routes, the non-human route is the only route where Jack learns many of the game's big reveals, develops more as a character, reunites with both Ridley and Ganz, and becomes an OfficialCouple with Ridley. The human route allows for more unique gameplay elements such as having Jack romance another character, at the cost of the story being less explained and having an ending that is more concrete but decidedly more somber.

* LadyOfWar: Ridley, Elwen, Alicia, Natalie, Lily, Iris, and [[spoiler:Valkyrie]], to name a few, are graceful and skilled fighters. Elwen in particular; being of stunning beauty, it's surprising to see a woman [[BadassInCharge in such a position]] without making her into a {{tsundere}} or something similar.

* DeathBySex: It is stated that the birth of the algandars disease was an ancient light elf king marrying a human woman. Thus, it can implied that the fate of any light elf that copulates with a human is apparently eternal imprisonment in a leafy cocoon.