This topic is for discussing my second test run of Radiant Historia.

I plan to write a text walkthrough during this test run, including full ASCII maps, to upload to GameFAQs, so that you guys can respond to my detailed strategies before making the LP. For discussing my recording arrangements, please refer to the other topic I've created. Also, even though this is a new game, I am allowing SPOILERS to be discussed in this topic.

My notes are pretty much ready to go. I just need to make some minor tweaks to sidequests and equipment purchases, but I've basically got everything ready to go.

Thanks for the discussion.

When it comes to the walkthrough, how exactly will you go about it? I was thinking of writing my own for SaGa 3 DS, and since you seem to have experience with this, I was just wondering.

Hooray! One step closer to the real thing! This IS good NEWS, indeed! :D

Well, I've already completed all my notes, shoplists, ASCII maps and everything I need for the walkthrough from my first test run. All I need to do is put it together.

I just had a horrible realization. Gafka is the lovechild of Gafgarion and Kefka!

*crickets chirp*

My mind works in strange ways, I guess.

Does Gafka have dark sword attacks?

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.......Are you saying that because it looks like the two names mashed together? Or because the character is like the two?

(The only time I can recall two names being mashed together resulting in something funny was when the Flying Destiny, and The V-Chip collided, and made the V-Giny (Where'd the 'G' come from?))

Every time I typed Gafka into my notes, it would try to auto-complete it as Gafgarion.

I love ASCII Maps. I wish more walkthroughs had them. They really help with figuring out where stuff is.

HCBailly, I was wondering about this earlier and now I have to ask: Will you be showing off the fight with Pierre? It can be a hard to miss boss fight if you rescue his sister from the sewers too soon (and I know that I missed it on my first playthrough); plus, IIRC you can get a decent steal item from him.

I definitely missed her on my first playthrough, and I only found her when I finally HAD to find her. Honestly, I really liked that.

I'll think about what I want to do with Pierre. I'm open to opinions. I wonder how I could handle that during the LP? Maybe show what happens when I find Claire, but then load a save state, and move on as though I didn't find her.

I've started writing the walkthrough today and observed yet another reason why I love this game. The NPCs actually give a ton of background and depth to the world. As opposed to many REALLY old school RPGs, where the NPCs primarily serve to give you directions. Normally, when I write a walkthrough, I like to talk about how I figured something out, and mention NPCs who contributed to that. In this game, I don't need to do that. However, that does seem to make the walkthrough a little bland. I'm open to suggestions on how to handle this as well.

Wouldn't that be better the opposite way? Or am I missing something here?

Well, you'll have to save not just Pierre but Will and Otto at some point too just to progress the plot (waaaay later in the SH), so my suggestion would be to do all of those at once when you have to. All of their rescue points are within close proximity to each other on the timeline, so it wouldn't take too long to do. I would suggest showing where Claire is initially and saying something like, "She'll be important for later; just keep her in mind for now, viewers", then just continue on and do the fight with Pierre.

I dunno about that. Not showing her off at all would be better, I think. If you do, people will figure out "oh, you just have to talk to that girl and Pierre won't betray you". I was quote surprised by Pierre's betrayal and how I had to fight him, and I think that it would show even better how bad the entire situation is for everyone, and that not everyone you meet can be trusted. Trust, betrayal, all that fancy stuff.

I could just show rescuing her, then reload without doing it, and not elaborate on it at the time. I could then explain how it influences events later after the "Pierre's Betrayal" node.

I made some great progress with the walkthrough. Here's a link to check it out:

Walkthrough Sample

Let me know what you think about how I'm organizing everything. I figured that I'll still put treasures in all caps to make them stand out. For nodes and sidequests, I figured that I'll put them in brackets. Here's my notes that I'll be using for writing the full walkthrough.

Task Log 2.0

I'll probably want to rearrange when I do certain sidequests to be slightly more efficient, but everything in there unlocks every node in the game. At this point, I made it to Alma Mine in Alternate History, so I'm off to Standard History now.

Pretty cool walkthrough. Out of curiosity will you be putting it on Gamefaqs? There aren't a lot of walkthroughs on the game.

Yeah, that's the idea.

So. that'll be walkthrough #2 now? Any more you plan to do or is that it for you?

To get some discussion going on here:

Which did you prefer, Standard or Alternate History, and why?

Cool walkthrough.

One thing to watch out for is concision. Three examples:

-"talk to Rosch and continue on to Lazvil Hills"
"Continue on" is tautological. Just "continue." It's like "where is it located at?" The on (and the at) are unnecessary, and a walkthrough like this already involves a lot of text.

A better example: "Immediately upon your arrival" --> "On arriving."
And "If you wish to proceed by staying under Heiss" --> "To follow Heiss' path,"


Also, and slightly less importantly, I don't know how much you care about grammatical errors, but here are some of the non-trivial ones (ignoring commas and minor errors):

-"Afterwards, you will be given a critical decision to make."
This doesn't make sense, since it's the option that you're given, not the decision; "you will have to make an important choice" is better here.

-"you will make it out alive this time"
A little confusing, since you make it out alive both times (it sounds like Stocke dies).

-"To the left is the item shop and the inn is to the right."
This can be confusing because it sounds like both the item shop and the inn could be in either direction, but you have a map so it's not that bad. "To the left is the item shop, and to the right is the inn" is better, though, or "the item shop is on the left and the inn is on the right."

Just a few examples. There are more like this that I think it might be important to fix (again, ignoring commas and minor errors), but I'm not sure whether or not you care.

Some of these examples come from everyday mistakes that people make, but people who aren't extremely fluent in English won't know what qualifies as common mistakes and might get confused. Also, for people learning English, some of these mistakes seen in written text in a guide or walkthrough might injure their attempts to learn.


Again, cool walkthrough, and thanks for all the effort.

looks really good. Remember the more information provided the better. I've seen so many walkthroughs that lacked that extra detail.

One recommendation that I'm going to make is the Table of Content tags. Maybe make them more simple like (WT01), (WT02), etc for each section of the walkthrough.

Thank you for getting me interested in this awesome game HC

I appreciate the effort you put into actually reading the whole thing Solid Sense. However, I'm not really that concerned with making everything 100% grammatically correct. If anything, I'm far more concerned about the technical details of everything that happens in the game. I'll run it through a spell check, but I'm not going to agonize over every nitpicking grammatical error, as long as I'm not missing a word or some critical detail.

"The world sure is ending, hon."

"Yup."

"Did you hear that the world is ending, Stocke?"

"Yeah."

"Right...thought you ought to know."

I made some decent progress with the walkthrough today, going all the way through Judgement Cliff. Unlike my first test run, I decided to procure as much treasure as I could the first time around, despite the high difficulty of the enemies to the west. There's a treasure there that you can't get later in Chapter 3, because Granorg is around. Not that it actually matters, at all. I'm just satisfying my OCD.

They just sit back and watch the world end? Wow i thought they were the heros.

The only true happy ending for Stocke.

Yeah. some of those endings are brutal and a few really don't make sense, IMO. But they are nice additions and it's really nice to see how many decisions can alter things.

Wow... That's going to be interesting when I get to that point.

I remember something I did in the game that I find pretty funny, somewhat. When I got to the point where I needed to decide whether to join Rosches brigade or not, I wanted to pick the path that wouldn't be correct and not have me continue the story (I didn't know at the time that this creates 2 seperate paths) since I wanted to complete as much nodes as I can. Thinking about it, I thought not joining his brigade would lead me to that.

...I think I was thinking too hard on the matter. XD

I love all the different endings. They start out sensible enough, but then slowly become more and more ridiculous and silly. It's also nice to see them go through the effort to consider alternate outcomes for different decisions. Unlike some other games where you get multiple choices, but end up with basically the same outcome anyway.

I just had a shocking realization. I always kind of drew a parallel between Stocke and Squall, except Stocke is remotely likeable. Then, I thought about it more. It hurts.

Stocke = Squall (the loner)
Raynie = Rinoa (the love interest)
Marco = Irvine (experts at surveillance, okay that's a stretch)
Gafka = Zell (martial artists)
Aht = Selphie (hyper little girl)
Eruca = Quistis (sisterly mentor type)
Selvan & Dias = Fujin & Raijin (evil minions)
Protea = Edea (evil female leader of bad guys, wears a lot of purple)

I could probably go on, but it hurts too much. The similarities are eerie.

Wears a lot of Purple made me laugh.

Oh, God. Now I'll never play this game again without thinking about these comparisons.

The problem is that Stocke isn't really a loner. It might seem that way, but if there was any signs of being a loner it quickly went away...unlike FF8. Also, I don't see Raynie as the love interest myself, even though there are certainly times, it really is downplayed. As least the game doesn't FORCE a relationship between the two...unlike FF8.

Still, there are great comparisons. You could probably compare it to a lot of game actually.

Oh yeah. Stocke is light years more enjoyable than Squall. Stocke only wants to work alone to avoid others getting killed. Squall is afraid of being emotionally hurt himself. I was probably stretching a bit on some of the comparisons, but I just found it amusing.

I decided to put a little extra time into the walkthrough, so I wrote all the way up through the Sand Fortress. Planning a budget ahead of time is making life so much easier. In my first test run, I was buying everything as I went, and could never afford accessories. This time, I made accessories a priority, and now I can still afford a Rune Spear, Rune Edge, Custom Lance, and 3 Silver Mails for when I get back to the Alma Mine. I was also lucky enough to win a Vital Blade (HP+25) from Feepos for Marco.

I like the comparisons. Like Selphie, Aht likes to blow shit up. Although she uses traps instead of ridiculously big cannons.

Yes. But then you realise Stocke actually died in the intro, and everything after has just been a dream. ;)

I'm going through some sidequests I missed on my first playthrough, and...

Simmering Fury. Holy shit, Marco is badass.

EDIT:

Aren't these only available in Forgia after the Battle for Skalla?