Radiant Tale Review - LadiesGamers

Review code used, with many thanks to MMPR.

Radiant Tale

Radiant Tale introduces us to Tifalia. Tifalia lost her parents at a young age and has since then been working at her aunt’s tavern. Together with her pink fluffy Fey companion Radie, she tries to make all her customers happy by serving them their unique tavern foods.

One day a Fey dragon falls out of the sky on top of Tifalia. As she later finds out the Fey dragon is called Vilio and is part of a traveling group called CIRCUS. Their mission is to travel across the country to the five big cities and perform to bring joy to the people. From this joy, a powerful magical flower with healing powers will grow. They will need these healing powers to heal their Prince. Tifalia gets invited along to travel with the group as their producer. Being their producer means that she will come up with how the shows will go and which acts they will perform. After a tough decision, Tifalia decides to leave her comfortable life at the tavern and set out on this unique journey. They have a long road ahead, but they have to succeed in order to save their prince.

The CIRCUS Group

There are five character routes in Radiant Tale and also one extended common route. Only Vilio’s route is locked at the beginning and before you can play it you have to play the four other character routes first. The route order I could find online and that I followed myself was: Zafora > Paschalia > Ion > Radie > Vilio. You can switch Zafora or Paschalia in order, the other routes are a little more spoiler heavy.

Zafora

He has quite a sharp tongue and is especially harsh towards Tifalia. This makes him our Tsundere boy of course. Originally, he is from Cultura which is known for its labyrinth and is tied to the wind element. Zafora may not seem like it at first, but he has a big heart for his city.

Being the show-no-emotions guy, he tries to keep himself from not interacting with the group too much. He just doesn’t want to become too attached. But after spending more time with the group he shows his caring side, giving the others gifts and offering to help out with things they need. We especially see his softer side in his own route. I saw in the Japanese reviews that the majority were a bit disappointed by Zafora, but I don’t necessarily share this opinion and I liked the character well enough. He and Tifalia had such an adorable romance which made me smile a lot. Though they don’t have as many romance scenes because the romance started later on in Zafora’s route.

Zafora: Sharp-tongued but secretly has a small heart

Paschalia

The thing that you will first notice about him is that he has the look of a water fey. This is because he has a contract with a water spirit, which makes his features appear blue and water-like. Aside from his features he also possesses water magic.

Zafora describes Paschalia as a country bumpkin, the main reason for this is that he grew up in a small town, so he is not super familiar with the outside world. This makes him excited and appreciative of everything around him. He is very kind and caring but does have a reserved personality and tries his best to avoid conflicts. He is most protective of the spirits that others can’t see, this is because he has a contract with one.

This route was my least favourite, and there are two reasons. The first is that I am not super fond of the: “I am not good enough for you” trope. The second reason is that the route just didn’t have a super exciting plot. What I will say is that they had a satisfying romance-filled ending, with some beautiful CGs.

Paschalia: The caring and sensitive country bumpkin.

Ion

He is from the big city of Ferus, which is home to the fire spirit Valen. Ferus is a tough city where the strong villagers rule everything and everything is decided through a dual. Ion claimed to be a member of the Public Security Forces before a royal advisor of the king ordered him to join CIRCUS, but as we find out early on this is not entirely true. As for magical powers, he has none. He mostly fights his battles with his spear or bare fists. Ion has a scary appearance to everyone he meets, most of the time people tend to run away upon seeing him. But in actuality, he is very polite to everyone. Next to polite he is also often expressionless and is in charge of the safety of the CIRCUS group. His second “job” in the group is cooking the meals with Tifalia for the group. This is where he shines and makes his comrades happy with his delicious cooking.

From this route on, Radiant Tale starts to pick up. The first two routes were a bit less exciting and didn’t have a huge plot, but Ion’s route really changed it up. I liked the plot, and I couldn’t put it down. As a character Ion is so adorable in a way. He is that typical broad and strong man that has a very gentle side to him that just makes you fall in love with him. It really did something to me seeing this polite and strong man being sensitive and fighting for what he wants. Also, the romantic vibe he and Tifalia had going started pretty early on and I really enjoyed them interacting together. It was sort of a princess and guard vibe.

Ion: Scary appearance but really polite.

Radie

As mentioned before he is a fey and has been with Tifalia ever since she was little. At first, we see him as a pink-furred sort of fox. Radie reveals early on that he does have a human form which he doesn’t want Tifalia to know about. He and Tifalia are inseparable and he is always by her side to protect her. His favourite thing to do is drinking at all hours of the day. But he will always put Tifalia first. Radie really is Tifalia’s guardian and he will do anything to make her happy, even perform a show in his fey form. Next to being Tifalia’s protector, he is very kind toward all loving things and gives very good advice to his fellow group members.

My goodness, can we just talk about his voice!?! He is voiced by Okamoto Nobuhiko who has also voiced Yang in Piofiore. And it did not disappoint, from the moment he first transformed to human form I was entranced by him. Radie’s route reveals a lot about Tifalia and Radie’s past, which was so interesting that I couldn’t put it down. I liked their romance, although at the start it was obviously more of a brother and sister type situation. But of course as in every brother sister type scenario, the heroine finally has the guts to speak up and take the lead in the relationship.

Vilio

Vilio is the first character of the CIRCUS group that we meet in Radiant Tale. He has an unusual entrance as he falls on top of our heroine Tifalia. As we quickly come to find out, Vilio is a dragon fey. And it’s really rare to see a dragon in the normal world, since the dragons all live on a secret island. Vilio is good natured and is just trying to learn everything about the world. He is also always has a positive and no quitting mind set. Vilio is willing to fight for what he wants and won’t back down from a fight. He really is the glue that holds the group together.

His route is different from the common route and it fills in some gaps in the original route. This is of course mostly about VIlio so we get to see him interacting with Tifalia a lot more. We also get more information about the other fey dragons and about the prince, Colivoes.

The route in general was good and had a well thought out plot which was nice because some earlier routes kind of missed that. At about chapter 6 I really couldn’t put the game down. I do get why they left Vilio’s route till last because he would fit with Tifalia the best.

Vilio, always positive and fights for what’s right

Visuals and Sound

Let’s start with the sound. The game didn’t have a particularly noticeable out-of-this-world soundtrack but, it fits incredibly well with the circus theme of the game. I really enjoyed the quaint and cosy music of the game and it really added an extra touch. Really a well-done soundtrack.

Now the visuals… This is where this game absolutely blew me out of the water. From the moment I first started up Radiant Tale I was mesmerized by the visuals in this game. The CGs were made by the same artist as Variable Barricade and they are just gorgeous to look at. I think you could stare at them for a long time and find little details the longer you look at them. In think in terms of visuals in a game this is the best ever game for me.

System

The system isn’t groundbreaking, but I do want to mention it just for the stunning visuals, sorry (not sorry😅). First is the love catch, when picking an answer the system shows you whether you have gone up in romance for the character you want. You can also view the status of your romance progression by pushing the right joystick up.

The status screen shows your romance progression.

The other system function is a map of every big city. When this map comes up you get to choose the character you want to interact with to level up their romance. In this map we also get to see the chibi versions of all the characters, this is always a fun bonus.

Overall thoughts

When I got the code to review Radiant Tale, I was right in the middle of graduating from college. And the game couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. I was finishing up my project and internship and it was time to relax. Radiant Tale has such a cosy and dreamy vibe that it just enveloped me in a sweet dream of relaxation. In my opinion, the routes are easy to play and I finished it relatively quickly. I will say that I do think that this game is not meant to be binged in a few days because it feels so much more relaxing to take multiple days of short playing to finish it. But do what feels right for you.

If we are talking characters, I liked the final three routes the best. So those are Ion, Radie and Vilio. Their route had more of an exciting plot and actually did have some unexpected spoilers. I do think they should have made Radie the “Final Route” because of the spoilers in it. But you can’t have it all😄.

This game has absolutely spoiled me in terms of world-building and artwork. They took a lot of time to set up the beautiful world and make very fitting visuals for it. Even the system design is just gorgeous. They have used the art nouveau movement from around the 1900s to create the overall system designs. And being an art lover, I loved spotting all the different art techniques that were used. Like for example Jugenstil and all the floral patterns.

However, there are a few things I want to mention that I noticed. First off, the font was really hard to read at times, the main reason was that the font was too thin. The other thing I wanted to mention is about the heroine herself. In some routes, we didn’t really get to see her a lot. Whether this was because there were a lot of cut scenes to the others or just that we don’t really get to see who Tifalia is because she doesn’t have a lot of inner monologue or thoughts.

Conclusion

I want to mention that Radiant Tale has focussed a lot more on world-building and visual designs than on the plots of the routes. This makes the overall topics of the routes more about accomplishing things through the power of love and friendships. I was not at all bothered by this, but if you have a need for a strong plot this might not be the game for you. But I really loved the game, yes it did have some small things I would have done differently, but there were also a lot of things that made up for those small things. So I would encourage everyone who is into stunning visuals and cosy vibes to pick this game up.

Final verdict: I like it a lot.