Alistel soldier Stocke is chosen to wield the White Chronicle, a tome capable of navigating multiple timelines, so he may prevent Vainqueur's desertification.

Radiant Historia was developed by a team with staff drawn from both Atlus' Megami Tensei series, and the tri-Ace title Radiata Stories.

The remake included redrawn artwork, voice acting, an additional story path, and an animated opening produced by A-1 Pictures.

Radiant Historia is a role-playing video game (RPG) set in a fantasy world and following a group of characters traveling across the war-torn continent of Vainqueur.

[1] Within these environments following the game's opening mission, the main character Stocke can manipulate boxes to clear paths and solve puzzles, in addition to other elements such as destructible objects and treasure chests containing consumables or items such as armor and weapons.

[5] A key part of Radiant Historia is navigating a series of branching stories spread across alternate timelines using a book called the White Chronicle.

Once ruled by an ancient empire, it is now divided between the warring kingdoms of Alistel and Granorg; the root of the war stems from Alistel's belief that Granorg is responsible for the spread of the Sand Plague, a magical illness which drains living beings of their Mana energy and turns them to sand—the desertification of the continent is spreading, further inflaming the conflict.

He uses skills acquired in each timeline to proceed further in each role, while also interacting with the Beastmen tribes, particularly the young shaman Aht and the sympathetic warrior Gafka.

He also learns that Hugo, a prominent religious leader of Alistel, has formed a pact with Granorg to depose its ruling queen Protea and is manipulating the war for his own ends; and that Heiss is acting for his own agenda, playing both sides against each other, and has intimate knowledge of the White Chronicle.

From Heiss and Teo and Lippti, Stocke learns that the Sand Plague was caused by a runaway spell intended to stabilize the world's mana and ensure the prosperity of the ancient empire.

The other characters work to help Vainqueur rebuild, including beginning research into ways of stabilizing mana which will negate the ritual and the need for sacrifices.

[10][11][12][13] Staff members had worked on both Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Radiata Stories, a 2005 PlayStation 2 role-playing game developed by tri-Ace and published by Square Enix.

While the concept of the 3x3 grid-based battle system was conceived by Takayashiki in the initial proposal, many of the additional elements related to skills were contributed by Atlus staff.

When designing the gameplay, the Atlus staff kept the basic proposal intact while streamlining through refining the mechanics and simplifying sprite animations to quicken the pace of standard battles.

Editing of text was handled by Nich Maragos, Scott Strichart, Mike Meeker and Clayton Chan, while the QA team was led by Richard Rodrigues.

[19] Speaking in 2015, Maragos later remembered Radiant Historia as his favorite localization up to that point, citing it as far easier than the majority of other titles he had worked on.

[14] The main writer was Yoh Haduki, who had previously written the scenarios for Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor and Growlanser Wayfarer of Time.

[23] The narrative retained the air of a historical drama from Takayashiki original proposal, creating a storyline where no-one was explicitly right or wrong.

The game's title was created by Atlus staff: "Radiant" referred to Stocke's mission across time to restore the world's light, while "Historia" came from the word "History".

Stocke was originally a plain-looking assassin dressed completely in black, described by Konishi as an amalgamation of typical "cool" game character traits.

[23] Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology,[b] an expanded remake of the original game for Nintendo 3DS, began development in 2016 following the completion of Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, which Hirata directed.

[15] A remake of Radiant Historia was originally in production for a different portable platform, the PlayStation Vita, but Hirata's commitment to Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE caused the project to be put on hold.

[30][31] The music for Radiant Historia was written by Yoko Shimomura, a composer best known for her work on the Kingdom Hearts series and Legend of Mana.

[24][32] Shimomura's aim was to create an "emotionally heartrending song with a good tempo, but with parts that were both calm and graceful", resulting in her use of acoustic guitar, violin and accordion, alongside incorporating light piano into the entire track.

[41] The soundtrack featured all the old and new music, in addition to arranged versions of multiple tracks including the original theme song "Historia".

[47] Game Informer's Joe Juba said the narrative and its time travel mechanic "defies the predictability of traditional RPGs" while having a genre-typical structure.

[3] IGN's Audrey Drake lauded the storyline and battle system, though she disliked the amount of backtracking and redoing events necessary to explore all timeline options.

[49] James Jones of Nintendo World Report felt that Radiant Historia "should be on the must-own list of any fans of RPGs" and acted as a fitting end to Atlus's support of the DS platform.

[55] Jeremy Parish, writing for Polygon, felt that the 3DS remake gave the game a chance to find an audience after going mostly unnoticed during its original release.

[59] Perfect Chronology debuted in Japan at #1, selling 21,429 units and pushing Nintendo Switch exclusive Arms to #2 after two weeks at the top of the charts.