Radiant Historia - more details on the radical changes during development (a sword as a main character?!)

- originally conceived by Tri-Ace’s Satoshi Takayashiki, concept designer on Radiata Stories
- he pitched this idea to Atlus because he was fond of their work
- he felt the game could benefit from Atlus’ experience developing role-playing games
- Atlus requested certain changes be made to the concept design
- the original idea was for the main character to be a sword
- Atlus said this idea wouldn’t work, all because players wouldn’t be able to relate to an inanimate object as a protagonist
- the game was originally going to feature two separate axes — horizontal and vertical
- the vertical axis would represent different timelines, and the horizontal axis would present the game’s story
- this was going to be a historical drama
- Atlus had this changed to a simpler timeline
- The game was originally going to have an ending that was quite sad, with everything in the game’s world coming to an end
- Atlus changed this to multiple endings in the final game
- Atlus did the battle system work concerning how skills were acquired and balanced
- Takayashiki’s inspiration came from fantasy novels, as well as other franchises that have detailed settings and characters, such as One Piece, Gundam, Warhammer and Dragon Quest

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