Radia Senki: Reimeihen (1991)

Preliminary: I was real unsure, cuz it seems to have a tactical element to the combat with frustrating, rudimentary AI (per things I read) and well, an NES game when I'm pumped for SNES and Link to the Past. But the music is really good so far so here goes nothing :-p

The first battle was surprisingly solid and action-adventure-y with almost an FF12 style "tactical" element, nothing to burdensome (yet). However your movement is remarkably slow. The positive to that is, it seems collision masks aren't too frustrating so far.

The movement is also slow outside of combat, and I can already tell that inventory management will be a headache (not that either of these issues is unique for a 1991 JRPG), but I like that it has a lot of QoL stuff like you don't have to go into a menu to search for items etc.

Early Game

I love that you can sleep in anyones bed :-p The music continues to be good, the plotline good, and the RPG hook. However, the movement continues to be slow, especially during battle, and it doesn't have a strikingly unique feature among the many NES JRPGs except the tactical element that I don't really focus on, I focus on slashing :-p I just hope the slow battles don't bog it down, esp when I have to truly grind.

Yeahhhh the battles/grinds are definitely bogging this down. It's just too slow. But I'm still hooked cuz it has that action adventure element and RPG element so we shall see.

Well now some of the dungeon music is getting generic and blah, and coupled with the usual NES Look in an era of the SNES and Genesis and beyond, it's hard to see this going above a 4 star. Plus, I'm already abusing fast forward sometimes due to the usual NES JRPG slow movement factor and I'm quite early in the game (just got to a castle).

I love that they have these free beds to sleep in to heal and save, but like, what's the point of an Inn then? Oh nvm that's for the plotline not a pay-for-heal/sleep. The whole wake-up-in-middle-of-night plot trope is getting a bit repetitive heh, but it kinda reminds me of later FFs like a certain scene in FF9.

Ugh like what happened with Final Fantasy Adventure, the initially great music is devolving into the usual NES dungeon and fantasy tunes, with annoying pitches and whatnot. I hope I don't burn out on this like I did with FFA, because this really is a great and well-made game, but again, with Link to the Past coming up, and 92 being the start of several of my beloved DOS games etc, I also don't want to "settle," or feel obliged to finish a game.

I do really like the nighttime look of this town tho

And the movement may still be too slow, but I like when you have 4 characters at once. Hopefully the team just keeps getting bigger and bigger haha. And the QoL of the menus continue to impress me for its time. I'm enjoying grinding at a spot the guide said is a great spot, while having 4 characters. Weeee. But I'm using Fast Forward to assuage my frustration with the worst aspect of the game--the slow movement. (I'm taking more damage due to this being an ARPG, but easy to just head back to town and rest). And sure enough as I'm getting back into the game and feeling it more now that I have a sizable party and am fast forwarding the battles and the backtracking segments, the music is getting better in my eyes :-p Funny how that works :-p

Another nice screen here

Ugh boo not frequent status ailments now please no! Ha. Another of my least favorite trope of early JRPGs. It's also annoying how the enemies often will go outside of the attackable/walkable area. As if the battles weren't already slow enough... The backtacking is... a lot. I didn't mint it at first but how many more times? And with the battles... With that being said, I have fully developed that undeniable JRPG hook, so I will likely play it to the end even tho this will likely settle comfortably at a 4 star.

My screenshot program was being rude last time I tried to catch a screenshot of the airship, and it was a cooler screen, but at least I got it this time

I had already thought of Nausicaa when in the valley town with the windmills, but this "airship" too

Mid Game

I'm thinking Guandia is considered mid-game, so Imma separate it there. Some really good music parts (like the main melody of the Water Capital town's tune), but also some real annoying parts. This game is imperfect, and the combat really winds up being quite mediocre in the long run, but I am fully hooked in both the RPG and action-adventure sense, so gotta give it credit.

Unless I'm mistaken, there seems to be no way to drop Items? (you can drop Gear tho). Silly. The plotline is reminding me of FF4 where it's just one oh my gosh the bad guy used you for the next item, over, and over, and over again

Late Game

The frequent Poison status effect is staying annoying. Also, the frequency of the slow battles, and the issue of enemies being unreachable for lengthy periods of time, all are really bogging this down. Further proof it wont go above a 4 star despite my intensive hook to it, but also still hooked to it indeed haha.

I'm struggling to follow the endgame plot twists heh, but this was an epic screen

Again, the hook is quite apparent in that I wound up choosing to finish this tonight rather than switch over to the planned OSRS Ironman grind (and that was to get Barrows Gloves, a huge upgrade for OSRS!)

Oh boy it was tough getting to the end of this final area. Thank goodness enemies often drop healing items

And so begins the ending!

Oh wow that ended abruptly heh. And if I'm understanding the storyline correctly, it's giving me FFX vibes with the dreamt-up world element. Disappointing credit music, was hoping for something more serene and reflective, but it did turn into a bop as it developed lol. Goofy and fun for such a serious game.

Look: 8/10 Technically nothing special for late 91, but for the NES it's great, and some really excellent screens. This could even be an 8.5 I think.

Sound: 8/10 Some great tunes, some annoying tunes. For the most part, usual NES fare, but there were parts I had to just sit and bop to the music.

Play: 8.5/10 I'll never be able to deny that RPG hook! This has a lot of flaws so it really probly should be an 8, but the hook was real with this one!

Feel: 8.5/10

Attachment: 8/10 I want to say I definitely would return to this but the slow combat and movement makes me unsure. Still, if I were to return to early true ARPGs, ones that truly incorporated both RPG leveling/equipment upgrading and action-adventure (and tactical for that matter), then this would be the top of the list so far!

Overall: 8.2/10

Sometimes good games that deserve international releases never make it outside of their country of origin. And sometimes bad games that never should have been released get exports instead (cough cough Secret of the Stars cough). Which is a shame, because Radia Senki: Reimeihen ("Chronicle of the Radia War") could have been as successful as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.

The story starts off with an awesome cinematic featuring fighter jets, where a Princess named Lefis tries to escape a sinister fellow called Gadiss, but is shot down. Once the game begins proper, your hero wakes up in a field, unable to remember anything but his name. (This game was made in 1991, so we can forgive this cliche.) He soons meets Darus, a mage who seeks vengeance against Nova, the ruler of his homeland, for the death of his father. Naturally, these two plotlines end up intertwining and the Hero must set forth to uncover and thwart the plans of Gadiss and Nova. Much like any good JRPG of the time, there's a nice plot twist that comes late in the game that shifts the nature of the plot.

As you adventure through the world, you assemble a little entourage of your own, including the aforementioned mage Darus, your typical "friendly" thief, a knight clad in pink armour, a Count's daughter, and two different female mages. (Somewhat disappointly, both are palette swaps of Darus...and both are pink. In fact, both female mages are mechanically identical, though one is a temporary member.) Battles are in real-time and take place on the field, with knocking enemies back with your strikes being the major tactic of the battle system. You only directly control the Hero, while your allies are AI-controlled. Thankfully, the game allows you to give orders to individual allies or the entire party, whether to act freely, attack a specific enemy, or just stay the heck out of the way. While the Hero's sole role in battle is to repeatedly stab things in the face, other party members can learn Techs (i.e. magic spells). Tech points increase with level, and in an interesting twist their cooldown meter is inversely proportional to members' HP meters—by the end of the game, Darus can bust out multiple full-party full-heals within seconds. While generic enemy battles can get repetitive and there's only so much encounters can do, the game's boss battles are highlights of its battle system. Bosses grow to huge size and possess unique abilities, like conjuring allies or casting freezing bolts. Late-game boss battles are climatic and frantic affairs, even though few boss battles require much strategy beyond "hit the bad guy and don't die".

You might have already asked, "So is the ally AI any good?" And I would have to say, "Ehhh..." Even while acknowledging the low power of the Famicom and the number of units the game has to control, the ally AI is easily the biggest flaw of the game. Allies have very poor self-preservation, frequently walking right up to enemies and into clusters where they'll easily get battered about. How often they attack seems to be based on their stats, so seeing an ally stand still and do nothing is common. These shortcomings are especially apparently with Haman, who is the only AI party members who uses melee attacks...though inversely Baru, who has the longest range to his attacks, actually tends to not be stupid.

The poor AI doesn't detract too much from one of the most unique and memorable JRPGs of the NES/Famicom era. There are fan translations available for folks who don't know Japanese, though it's a shame that it never got the chance to shine outside of Japan (because Secret of the Stars was so much more deserving, Tecmo?). After all, when a JRPG includes a Death spell that kills every enemy in battle 100% of the time, you know you've got a gem.