YMMV / Radiata Stories

• Ass Pull: Several key plot elements, such as the world resets, Ridley being the chosen vessel of the Gold Dragon, and the motivations of the Big Bad are either not explained enough or come out of nowhere about halfway through the game. The cosmic imbalance at times will feel like Because Destiny Says So taken way too far occasionally and the exact mechanics the dragons' use to balance the world is never consistent. The main story's reliance on these kind of developments are one of the reason why the game was compared unfavorably to the stories of tri-Ace's previous games, which were almost unanimously praised for their main stories. Part of this was later discovered to be as a result of a bunch of cut content that would have given more context to the story, but it was cut for unknown reasons.
• Character Tiers: With so many characters to collect, they can't all be useful. For example, the leaders of the Guilds are top tier for the human side, while civilians and farmers are low tier. For the Non-Human side, the Orcs tend to dominate the end game due to their overpowered stats, while most of the Goblins are seen at the bottom.
• Complete Monster: Cross Ward is a deplorable man, and in the first scene the player meet him he is instantly recognizable as a racist Jerkass. Cross's depravity really comes to light when he leads his knight brigade to slaughter the dwarves of Earth Valley over a perceived insult from the dwarf leader.^note Which was really more of a very caustically delivered piece of advice. He continues acting horrible in each of the game's story branches; in the one where Jack stays with humanity and becomes a hero, Cross becomes a bitter glory hound, doing everything he can to establish himself as a great knight, using the war as an excuse to build his own reputation. In the path where Jack abandons humanity and sides with the non-humans, Cross becomes humanity's trump card instead of Jack. He uses his new influence to commit as many atrocities against the non-humans as his position will allow. He also kidnaps Jack's sister and tortures her.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Elwen, the chief of Theater Vancoor, is one of the most popular characters in the game, and one of the most recognizable parts from the game despite her mostly minor role in the game.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Elwen, whose high strength, which is highest among all humans, is boosted further in the daytime due to her King of Day skill.
  • Lenneth is even more ridiculous, but for good reason.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bob Papenbrook voices the Dragon Parsec while his son, Bryce, voices the protagonist Jack. On the human route, when Jack has to fight and defeat Parsec, Jack feels guilt and sadness at having to fight Parsec, as he had grown to enjoy talking to Parsec. A year after the game's release, Bob Papenbrook would tragically pass away from lung cancer, making the dynamic between Jack and Parsec harsher to look at with that in mind.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Carlos from Theater Vancoor, Clive from the Olacion Order, and Charlie from the Radiata Knights. All three seemed designed to be useless characters who you unlock extremely easily, and are outclassed very quickly.
  • Of all the faction leaders, Nyx, the faction leader for the thieves guild is considered the worst one. The reason largely stems from how good the other three are, in combination of how you need to unlock all the other faction leaders first to get him. By comparison, Nyx has really nothing of value to provide.
  • Many players' negative perception of mages is likely due to both Aidan and Curtis:
    • Aidan must reach level 32 for his father Cecil to join the Friends List. Thus anyone who wants to recruit all the mages will have to have him in the party at some point. Thankfully, his Training Device accessory can speed things up a bit. Aidan's attributes are pretty bad all around and on top of that, his Stone Javelin causes knockdown, which can be a pain to deal with.
    • Curtis, despite being the Guild Master of the Vareth Institute, is quite lackluster in battle, making the effort to recruit every other mage seem pointless. His Explosion spell takes an incredibly long time to charge and also causes knockdown. In the amount of time he takes to cast it, many speedier characters are able to pull off their entire attack combos. His main saving grace is his ability to use a Volty Blast and his magnificent mustache.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • "Dwarves are the enemy of humankind! It is time to strike! Show no mercy to the traitors!" Cross, you total, utter bastard.
  • Lucian, a.k.a. Aphelion, winds up crossing this at the end of the game. Despite his fondness for humans and his disillusionment with the order of the world seeking their destruction when things are out of whack, him killing either Ridley or Gawain, and being the one who orchestrated the deaths of the other dragons during the game, crosses the line since it's a bit hypocritical that someone has to die so someone else can live.
• Narm: Flora makes a rather weird grunt whenever she casts a healing spell.
• Player Punch: Most of the game is spent adventuring across the land, meeting people, helping with problems through numerous sidequests and even potentially recruiting many, many denizens of Radiata. Siding with Ridley for the non-human story route results in almost all of them attacking you on sight, and being forced to defeat and even kill former allies and associates; the entire race besides Jack and Ridley is wiped off the map by the end.
• Retroactive Recognition: Bryce Papenbrook would go on to voice lead characters in the dubs of many popular Japanese game franchises.
• Scrappy Weapon: Axes and spears are considered to be the worst weapons for Jack to wield in the game. While the axe has better damage, and the spear has solid damage combined with great reach, they both are too slow of weapon types, and make it risky to use in combat. The combos available also means that Jack can get attacked and damaged mid combo, leaving it even more risky to use then. By contrast, the one handed swords are quicker and have vastly better combos available despite lower weapon damage, and the two handed swords are often of near power to axes, but have better combos than axes.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general reception of the game, particularly in the West. Most agree that while the game is good all around, thanks to good gameplay, music, and fun characters that are backed by a interesting midway point, it isn't really impressive beyond that. The main story is generally considered one of the bigger weaknesses of the game despite the setting and being able to recruit almost everyone being praised, and the combat system is a very dumbed down version of Star Ocean's gameplay, to the point that it was criticized heavily. It also came out during what many see as the golden age for PS2 RPGs, meaning the game just couldn't create a real solid footing in order to stick out.
• Solo-Character Run: The final boss is so powerful against 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).
• That One Boss: The very first boss fight in the non-human path is this. The two-on-one duel at Fort Helencia wouldn't be so difficult if not for Natalie's "First Class Flurry," which can cause an instant kill. Not helping is that the game rarely forces Jack into one on one fights, so the player will be caught off guard by the spike in challenge provided and likely die. It was so difficult in fact, that the guidebook actually outright told players to use weapons that petrified the enemy, because it was the only viable strategy for many, and that still was a tricky feat to accomplish.
• That One Level: The Path of the Spider sewers is a sprawling labyrinth filled with many branching tunnels, rooms, and dead ends. The real kicker is that there is no in-game map available for the area, as pulling up the map at all with just show you the layout of the aboveground Radiata City.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Ganz, if you pick the human route, leaves Radiata and never appears again. While it's implied he leaves to wander the world, he only makes a token mention with his letter to Jack. He never confronts his father, helps Jack in any way, nor does him learning about Cross' actions before the route split amount of anything.
  • Adele, Jack's older sister. Despite being the only relative Jack has, she plays no role in the game outside her appearance at the start of the game, and being only given focus in about one scene in both routes. While she can be recruited, she's more or less a Lethal Joke Character, and the most she gets in screentime is if the player talks to her on the Human Route, and even then, you have to do specific things to get her as a party member, so it is possible to never get her.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Elwen's relationship with Parsec isn't really elaborated on. Clearly she has some kind of rivalry or old feud with him (and maybe the other dragons), but it's not exactly clear what that is.
  • Algandars. The game seems to play up just how mysterious this disease is, but it's never exactly clear what the actual truths of it are since most of it seems to be up to speculation. One particularly noteworthy point of this is the fact that while humans are more or less blamed for its existence, you actually see more humans succumbing to it over the course of the game than anyone else. How exactly are humans to blame for something they're suffering from as well? There also is the fact that Cairn, Jack's father, seems to have been infected with it either while fighting the Water Dragon, or by it, making it have heavy implications on the world. And what about the non-human ending, which shows that Lord Zane is succumbing to it himself, implying that the world being reset isn't going to stop it? The fact there are two different origin stories depending on which route you take also leaves its origins shrouded in mystery, but sadly its a minor plot point despite having heavy impact in the game's world.
• Too Cool to Live: Dynas is a tough and valiant senior knight. Even Jack thinks he's really cool. He also dies in both paths.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Yes the game has cartoony graphics, a ton of comedy, and has a generic fantasy world. It also is a story filled with genocide, racism, inequality, and even goes so far as to show that War Is Hell.