One thing that struck me with Radiata Stories was this: I went into it not expecting much, just another standard blah blah RPG that Square Enix put out while people are waiting for Final Fantasy XII to be released. But I was wrong. Radiata Stories is probably one of the most enjoyable RPGs to date. In my eyes it's definetely a classic and will be a hard to find title later on. Maybe not Valkyrie Profile classic, but a classic in its own respect.

The battle system is basically Star Ocean III done right. You only control one character (Jack Russel) throughout your adventures, but you can form various battle formations and commands through the "Give Orders" menu after learning either from books or from using formations in battle.