History Videogame / RadiataStories

* GambitPileup: There's the humans who want to do business by exploiting the dwarves; the dwarves who want to make more money at the expense of the humans; the elves who generally want to wipe out humanity because they don't want to be [[AndIMustScream trapped in a cucoon for eternity]] and believe this is the solution; the orcs who just like fighting and eating; the dragons who are trying to preserve a cosmic balance, and that's without going into individuals. Cross is an arrogant gloryhound who screws everyone else for his goals. Zane is an anti-human racist who wants to commit genocide. Aphelion who wants to bump off the other dragons to save the humans. Ridley who [[spoiler: opposes him by trying to wake up the Gold Dragon and start the Changeover]] and Jack who wants to protect Ridley even after finding this out. All of them([[CompleteMonster except for Cross and Zane]]) are [[YourMileageMayVary more or less sympathetic]].

** Well, the only true CompleteMonster is Cross; Larks and Dynas are nice enough people who unfortunately get caught in the war, and [[spoiler: Lucian is a [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned extremist]] [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragon]].]] Zane is slightly more sympathetic than Cross, [[YourMileageMayVary arguably]], but still too extreme to be anything but evil. Both sides have the good and the bad.

* MultipleEndings: There are two possible endings for the game, depending on which side of the war the player has Jack align. One is a DownerEnding, and the other is a BittersweetEnding. [[YourMileageMayVary Your mileage may vary]], of course.

* AllThereInTheManual: The surname of several characters is revealed only in the manga adaptation, Gerald's is Nickson, Thanos' is Benz, Alicia's is Alen, Jarvis' is Mondair and Daniel's is Arthur.

* InfiniteMinusOneSword/SwordOfPlotAdvancement: The Arbitrator for the non-human path, being the second strongest one-handed sword in the game.
* InfinitePlusOneSword: Holy Sword Gram, with an attack rating of 170, obtained after beating Valkyrie, despite suposelly being a legendary sword re-forged by the gods, she had doubles.

** The Black Goblin Pietro is (quite surprisingly) a shout out to DragonBallZ, to recruit him, you need to beat him three times, with him getting stronger each time, at one point he states he is going "Super Goblin", and after you recruit him, talk to him again to having him saying "Me make you legendariest warrior! First, [[PowerDyesYourHair dye hair yellow]]! [[InvokedTrope All legendariest warriors has yellow hair]]!"

* ShoutOut: There's Ganz, who dresses up like a fatter, older [[VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory Claude]] at one point; Jack, who can dress up as [[StarOcean3 Fayt]]; and, of course, [[MagicalGirl Cornelia]], who looks similar to [[CardCaptorSakura Sakura]] and [[VideoGame/XenoSaga Momo]]. Her schtick is also similar to another [[MagicalPrincessMinkyMomo Momo]], in fact, and in the Japanese version, her Rachel persona is a NamiTamaki cameo. She even holds nightly concerts, singing the game's OST.

* RyuAndKen: [[LightningBruiser Jack]] and [[MightyGlacier Ridley]], if the former's wielding an axe as well.

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 (thief guild)]] instead. The game then [[OpeningTheSandbox allows the player to start exploring]] [[WideOpenSandbox the environment]] a bit, and segues into the open-ended play promised on the box instead of a tedious [[ClicheStorm paint by numbers]] RPG.

* FantasticRacism: Drives a good portion of the plot. Cross is a CompleteMonster mostly because he is so willing to commit atrocities against entire communities of non-humans, and there are a number of hints that said non-humans were, and might still be, heavily discriminated against. On the flip side, however, there are plenty of non-humans who equally cross the line from understandable mistrust to unjustifiable racial hatred. Zane, the light elf's leader, in particular, wants nothing more than to wipe out every last human being in the world; not because they [[spoiler:cause a cosmic imbalance]], but because he unfairly blames them for the death of his brother, who died of the Algandars disease.

* GainaxEnding: On the Fairy path, [[spoiler:Jack, whose voice echoes, walks into a strangely empty Radiata with Ridley, who is glowing like the gold dragon.]]
* GambitPileup: There's the humans who want to do business by exploiting the dwarves; the dwarves who want to make more money at the expense of the humans; the elves who generally want to wipe out humanity because they don't want to be [[AndIMustScream trapped in a cucoon for eternity]] and believe this is the solution; the orcs who just like fighting and eating; the dragons who are trying to preserve a Cosmic Balance, and that's without going into individuals. Cross is an arrogant gloryhound who screws everyone else for his goals, Zane is an anti-human racist who wants to commit genocide, Aphelion who wants to bump off the other dragons to save the humans, Ridley who [[spoiler: opposes him by trying to wake up the gold dragon and start the Changeover]] and Jack who wants to protect Ridley even after finding this out. All of them([[CompleteMonster Except for Cross and Zane]]) are [[YourMileageMayVary more or less sympathetic]].

* GrayAndGreyMorality: While neither side is particularly evil, the game ultimately sympathizes more with the nonhumans. Nevertheless, there are heroes on both sides and the [[CantArgueWithElves light elves]] are nearly as xenophobic as the worst of the humans beings. Most of the [[CompleteMonster truly evil]] individuals are on the human end, though.

* GreyAndBlackMorality: Rynka and Flau are ''honorable'' bandits who 'only steal from those that deserve it'. Then there's Nocturne who takes 'shady assignments'.

* HopelessBossFight: The first battle against Ridley. There's also a few later where [[ButThouMust the game progresses whether the player wins or loses,]] with slight variations in dialogue being the only consequence.

* HumansAreBastards: The whole reason the light elves and many of the other races feel hatred and distrust toward humans is because they, from the nonhumans' point-of-view, are considered rather selfish, evil beings who are ruining the balance of the world.

* LadyAndKnight: Jack apoints himself Ridley's White Knight [[spoiler: on the Fairy path]] and not only protects her but lifts her spirits with endearingly corny jokes. [[spoiler: in personality they're the Bright couple but to the humans they're the dark couple, yet Gerald praises him for having the balls to turn against his entire race for the sake of his girl.]] For her part Ridley is a Bright Lady {{ojou}} who is trying to do what she think is right, and is grateful for Jack's support.

* MachoCamp: [[spoiler: Gabriel Celesta, of all people. In almost any other appearance he's a pretty boy.]]

** He gets chewed out for this on the nonhuman path [[spoiler: by JJ, an ''orc'' of all people]]
* NamesTheSame: One of the character's called Ridley. [[{{Metroid}} No, not that Ridley]].

* OfficialCouple: Jack/Ridley.
* {{Ojou}}: Ridley starts out as type 2 and [[spoiler: On the fairy path mellows into type 1]]

* SoloCharacterRun: The final boss is so powerful against [[ArtificialStupidity your party members]] that it's ''easier'' to fight the boss alone rather than blindly spending potions on them. Being an action RPG, It's possible to kill the final boss without getting a scratch when you know its pattern (albeit taking a long time.)
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The Knight Selection Trials. At the start, the judge says it is a 'completely unbiased assement of your abilities'. At the end, Jack passes after getting knocked out ''in the first round'' because his dad's a national hero.

* UnwantedHarem: Felix has a lot of [[HoYay male fans]], much to his own disturbance. This is likely due to his looks, however.

** Unfortunately for everyone else, the same approach is incorrect in two very big ways: [[spoiler: Carin killing the Water Dragon in the prologue and Cross slaughtering the dwarves just before the Split.]]

* WalkingTheEarth: [[spoiler: Jack on the Human Path.]]
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Aphelion [[spoiler:does his best to prevent the war from happening and tries to stop it as quickly as possible, as all he wants is to prevent the world from being constantly reset because the system is blatantly in favor of every race except humanity. It's a real shame his plan requires the death of the dragons and Ridley.]] Most nonhumans - ''most'' nonhumans; not Zane - are this in the [[GrayandGreyMorality human route, where they're Jack's enemies]], as it's not difficult to sympathize with their reasons for going to war in the first place.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Whatever happened to [[spoiler:the gold dragon that was supposed to destroy/reset the world?]] It was only on the verge of being permanently put down by [[spoiler:the silver dragon]], which Jack [[spoiler:kills]] in both endings. The endings seem to just forget that the original threat still exists. SequelHook much?
** [[spoiler:Ridley is the Gold Dragon. That's why Lucian says that "humanity will live forever" after he kills her in the human path, because there's no longer a gold dragon to reset the world.]]

** The necklace Nocturne stole is the same "lucky charm" that [[spoiler:Lucien gives to Jack on the human path]]. Recall that Flau says that they [[spoiler:sometimes get work from the castle]].

* WhatTheHellHero: Gawain says this to Jack after the latter slays the wind dragon, durring a NoHoldsBarredBeatDown.

''Radiata Stories'' is a [[RolePlayingGame role-playing game]] developed by {{Tri-Ace}} and published by [[SquareEnix Squenix]] for the [[PlayStation PS2]]. 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 makes for a much more realistic experience than the standard RPG towns populated with [[YouAllLookFamiliar eerily identical cookie-cutter residents]] who [[WelcomeToCorneria say the same things ad inifinitum]], though the game is limited by the hardware into making the characters [[GroundhogDayLoop repeat the same list of activities every day, with a few exceptions.]]

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, or the thief guild]], instead. The game then [[OpeningTheSandbox allows the player to start exploring]] [[WideOpenSandbox the environment]] a bit, and segues into the open-ended play promised on the box instead of a tedious [[ClicheStorm paint by numbers]] RPG.

As Jack and Gantz try to adjust to their new lives, a series of seemingly unrelated incidents begins to occur. Ridley begins experiencing strange headaches and speaking in a voice that is not her own. The dreaded disease algandars, said to be the only thing capable of fully killing the immortal elves, makes a reappearance after being gone for centuries. Tensions between the humans and nonhumans skyrocket as three particular individuals become prominent in the politics of Radiata: Zane, human-hating leader of the light elves; Lord Lucian, a mysterious courtesan of Radiata Castle who displays frightening [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] capabilities; and Cross Ward, Ridley's {{Jerkass}} [[ArrangedMarriage fiancee]].

As a last tidbit of info, ''RadiataStories'' is also notable for its high content of humor despite having a pretty serious story.

* AerithAndBob: Quite an extensive example, in fact; the title contains rather plain names, like Jack, Jill, Nick, and Lily; to somewhat uncommon names, such as Iris, Adina, Leona, and Santos; to downright bizarre names such as Zida, Few, Chatt, and Zeranium. All of these seem to have no racial or gender boundaries, as both humans and nonhumans, males and females alike, exhibit this vast range.
* AggressiveNegotiations: What the 'bluff' at [[spoiler: Earth Valley]] turned into, thanks to Cross.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Gil on the nonhumans side is this. He's one of the [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking light elves' strongest fighters, an assassin, and well known for his poetry]]. There's a side plot where [[spoiler:Franz, a dark elf who's obsessed with martial arts, challenges Gil. Gil beats him in about two seconds, but gives the boy some encouraging words nonetheless. They then run off into the sunset which confuses the onlooking Jack]].
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler: The fate of the elves who become afflicted with Algandars' Disease; this ends with them being encased in a cocoon for eternity.]]

* AristocratsAreEvil: Anastasia, Dwight and Lord Cross. Subverted by Ridley, who is just a little stuck up at first, Ganz whose genuinely friendly and goes out of his way to be polite, Lord Larks, the head of Radiata, who's actually [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure a good and compassionate leader, if a little strict]], Jasne who tries all he can to avoid the war and [[spoiler:Lucian, who works behind the scenes to keep humanity alive.]]

* {{Aw Look They Really Do Love Each Other}}: Jack and Ridley's relationship started with [[DefeatMeansFriendship her beating him in a tournament]]. As teammates they're antagonistic, but when Ridley is injuried Jack becomes protective of her and the first thing she does after waking up is check on him.

** Zeranium, Godwin, Ortoroz...if you're an elderly person in ''RadiataStories'' who isn't a farmer, you ''will'' kick ass.

* BaldOfAwesome: Dynas, head of the Radiata Knights. Jack was on the verge of becoming his FanBoy before he was kicked out of the knights, though he didn't like the bald thing.

** Cross, a CompleteMonster who is mostly to blame for the war igniting when he [[spoiler:slaughters the dwarves]]. He also [[spoiler:was the one who sent the blood orcs to attack the elves, triggering Jack and Ganz's expulsion as well as Ridley's receiving of a transpiritation.]] He doesn't quite fit in that in the human route he becomes an ally of Jack's - in theory, anyway - and in the nonhuman route he [[spoiler:gets killed prior to the final confrontation.]]
** Zane, leader of the light elves and, later, the nonhumans in general. A racist who wants to kill all humans for personal reasons rather than [[spoiler:humanity's disruption of the balance.]] ''He'' doesn't quite fit either as he mostly stays offscreen in the human path and hides his rather bloodthirsty nature when dealing with Jack in the nonhuman route.
** Aphelion, [[spoiler:aka Lord Lucian, the most competent [[TheChessmaster chessmaster]] in the game and the only one who really knows what's going on. He's also the FinalBoss of both paths.]] Once again, not a full example as in the human route the player learns just how [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned]] his plan is, while in the nonhuman route he's a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere.

** And a probably unintentional one: the assassin Lily is also known as "Vice," or the White Princess. The German word meaning "white"? Weiss. Now if you were Japanese, and trying to translate that to German , how would you spell it?

* BodyguardCrush: Natalie's...er..."relationship" with Lord Jasne.

* TheChessmaster: Lord Lucian, [[spoiler: AKA the Silver Dragon Aphelion.]]

* DownerEnding: Given the game has multiple endings, there ''[[RuleOfDrama had]]'' to be one. [[spoiler: Although, depending on how you look at it, ''both'' could be considered downer endings. If the player opts to side with the humans, Ridley dies and Jack leaves Radiata, too shell-shocked to stay after all he's been through. If the player, however, decides to join the nonhumans, Ridley survives and Ganz, instead, is killed; she and Jack then return to a Radiata that seems to be [[GainaxEnding inexplicably deserted and filled with glowing globs of unknown origin]]. The game is [[SequelHook deliberately vague]] about the circumstances of the latter ending...although an actual sequel has not been announced.]]

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Felix, and possibly Lucian. The former of the two has especial trouble with this trait in regards to other characters.

* EleventhHourRanger: The most powerful characters for both sides cannot be recruited until late in the game. The human side gives us the leaders of each guild - particularly Elwen, with an attack of 438 - as well as Natalie, while the nonhumans have the two orc leaders, Galvados (460) and JJ (430), as well as the black goblin chief, Gruel (410).

* EvilPLan: As with BigBad this trope is also subverted as there is no one villain's plot that encompasses the whole game. Its more all the BB candidates {{plan}}s clash until only one left is to finish their own.

** LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: Completely inverted. There ''is'' no magic stat, so, except for healers, all spellcasters go obsolete as time goes on, as opposed to melee types who don't experience (as much) change in usefulness over time. ''Jack's'' stats are also pretty atrocious when compared to some of the other characters, with the exception of [[BornLucky luck]].
* FantasticRacism: Drives a good portion of the plot. Cross is a CompleteMonster mostly because he is so willing to commit atrocities against entire communities of nonhumans, and there are a number of hints that said nonhumans were, and might still be, heavily discriminated against. On the flip side, however, there are plenty of nonhumans who equally cross the line from understandable mistrust to unjustifiable racial hatred. Zane, the light elf's leader, in particular, wants nothing more than to wipe out every last human being in the world; not because they [[spoiler:cause a cosmic imbalance]], but because he unfairly blames them for the death of his brother, who died of the algandars disease.

* CuteShotaroBoy: Aidan.

* RalphWiggum: Clive.

* KatanasAreJustBetter: The best two-handed sword in the game is the Muramasa. The best one-handed and two-handed swords for purchase are also katana.
* LadyAndKnight: Jack apoints himself Ridley's knight [[spoiler: on the Fairy path]] and not only protects her but lifts her spirits with endearingly corny jokes. [[spoiler: in personality they're the Bright couple but to the humans they're the dark couple, yet Gerald praises him for having the balls to turn against his entire race for the sake of his girl.]]

* AristocratsAreEvil: Anastasia, Dwight and Lord Cross. Subverted by Ridley, who is just a little stuck up at first, Ganz whose genuinely friendly and goes out of his way to be polite, Lord Larks, the head of Radiata, who's actually a good and compassionate leader, if a little strict, Jasne who tries all he can to avoid the war and [[spoiler:Lucian, who works behind the scenes to keep humanity alive.]]

* BaldOfAwesome: Dynas, head of the Radiata Knights.

* BigBad: Subverted. The main plot is the result of a GambitPileup meeting a [[spoiler:CosmicDeadline]] and there isn't any particular individual or group of individuals who could be considered the main source of conflicts. The most likely suspects are:

* StaffChick: Flora, perhaps figuratively speaking, and all recruitable female personnel of the Vareth Magic Institute, sans Leona.

* SoloCharacterRun: The final boss is so powerful against [[ArtificialStupidity your party members]] that it's ''easier'' to fight the boss alone rather than spending potions. Being an action RPG, It's possible to kill final boss without getting a scratch when you know its pattern (albeit taking a long time.)

* FishOutOfWater: While Ganz may be the knight who believes the most in chivalry, he ends up at the Void Community, as mentioned previously. Justified in that he fell in with honorable bandits.
* FridgeLogic: The description for the wooden breastplate details its origins, said to be made from the timber of "a magic tree that can be seen from afar, but disappears like a mirage," arguably when one comes close to it. So how exactly is the wood harvested?

* ShoutOut: There's Ganz, who dresses up like a fatter, older [[StarOcean2 Claude]] at one point; Jack, who can dress up as [[StarOcean3 Fayt]]; and, of course, [[MagicalGirl Cornelia]], who looks similar to [[CardCaptorSakura Sakura]] and [[VideoGame/XenoSaga Momo]]. Her schtick is also similar to another [[MagicalPrincessMinkyMomo Momo]], in fact, and in the Japanese version, her Rachel persona is a NamiTamaki cameo. She even holds nightly concerts, singing the game's OST.

* ShoutOut: There's Ganz, who dresses up like a fatter, older [[StarOcean2 Claude]] at one point; Jack, who can dress up as [[StarOcean3 Fayt]]; and, of course, [[MagicalGirl Cornelia]], who looks similar to [[CardCaptorSakura Sakura]] and [[XenoSaga Momo]]. Her schtick is also similar to another [[MagicalPrincessMinkyMomo Momo]], in fact, and in the Japanese version, her Rachel persona is a NamiTamaki cameo. She even holds nightly concerts, singing the game's OST.

Not to be confused with ''VideoGame/RadiantHistoria''.

* BigBad: Subverted. The main plot is the result of a ThirtyGambitPileup meeting a [[spoiler:CosmicDeadline]] and there isn't any particular individual or group of individuals who could be considered the main source of conflicts. The most likely suspects are:

* ThirtyGambitPileup: There's the humans who want to do business by exploiting the dwarves; the dwarves who want to make more money at the expense of the humans; the elves who generally want to wipe out humanity because they don't want to be [[AndIMustScream trapped in a cucoon for eternity]] and believe this is the solution; the orcs who just like fighting and eating; the dragons who are trying to preserve a Cosmic Balance, and that's without going into individuals. Cross is an arrogant gloryhound who screws everyone else for his goals, Zane is an anti-human racist who wants to commit genocide, Aphelion who wants to bump off the other dragons to save the humans, Ridley who [[spoiler: opposes him by trying to wake up the gold dragon and start the Changeover]] and Jack who wants to protect Ridley even after finding this out. All of them([[CompleteMonster Except for Cross and Zane]]) are [[YourMileageMayVary more or less sympathetic]].