Radiant: Guardians of Light mixes familiar beat ‘em up concepts with the character building mechanics of loot-hungry, crafting-heavy RPGs to tell the story of a hero’s struggle against an evil tyrant that rules over a fantasy world. I play as Ainar, a boy who dwells on a small island with his sister Alina. The pair live in fear because Alina is an Adept, an individual with the power to control bursts of elemental magic. Gifted children like her are hunted, captured, and taken to the fortress of the overlord Gultar where their powers are exploited under threat of torture. Inevitably, the siblings’ refuge is discovered and Alina is taken prisoner. Ainar pursues the hunting party to rescue her, quickly discovering that he possesses his own power: He is inhabited by a tiny spirit that fills his attacks with bursts of light, abilities that terrify Gultar’s servants when they are witnessed. Ainar’s quest takes him across four regions of the magical kingdom of Helia, culminating in a showdown with Gultar at the heart of his fortress.
Radiant is most immediately recognizable as a beat ‘em up, that venerable type of videogame where a hero or heroes march from the left side of a level to its right side while pounding everyone that gets in their way into the ground. Ainar’s basic abilities are familiar. There is a single attack button that directs him to swing his sword at the many bandits, soldiers, and evil creatures that assault him. Pressing this button several times in a row makes Ainar perform a short, simple combo attack. He can jump, which may be turned into a downthrust that emits a shockwave of light by pressing the attack button in midair. Lastly, he may dodgeroll safely through enemy attacks. In a nice refinement over similar videogames, the dodgeroll may be directed by whether I press the gamepad’s right or left shoulder button.
Genre veterans may be disappointed that Ainar is unable to grapple and throw enemies. Enemy encounters are designed for this omission. Not once do I miss this signature feature or feel like an encounter is made more difficult by its absence. Ainar makes up for his lack of wrestling skill with nimble and responsive movement. His agility lets him run back and forth to intercept newly spawned enemies, roll away from enemy attacks by reaction instead of anticipation, and generally remain on the offensive at all times. The effect is Radiant feels faster than other beat ‘em ups with their oafish player characters, though with the caveat that Ainar has fewer offensive options overall.
Ainar’s other major toolset is to exploit his newfound Adept powers. Every attack he lands on an enemy builds up a fragment of elemental power, represented by a bar beneath his hit point gauge. One-fifth of this bar may be spent to propel Ainar forward through anyone unfortunate enough to be in his way or explode with a burst of light that knocks back everyone in a wide circle around him. When the bar is completely filled, it may be expelled all at once for an awesome conflagration of light that consumes the entire screen.
I never feel like Ainar’s ultimate elemental attack is worth saving up for. The dash and burst abilities do a fine job damaging large numbers of enemies while also having more utility than the ultimate. Controlling the crowd is as vital in Radiant as in any other beat ’em up. Keeping enemies stacked up on one side of the screen lets Ainar pound all of them with his combo attack. The burst and dash are both effective tools for controlling the battlefield and far more efficient than the costly ultimate. Gultar’s armies also employ archers and spellcasters to bombard Ainar from afar. The areas their projectiles will soon impact are illustrated on the battlefield, and dodgerolling or sidestepping away is much easier when enemy packs have been corralled into a small area.
As I guide Ainar through four distinct narrative acts, the thousands of enemies he defeats shower him with loot. Gold is a common drop that spills from enemies as valuable coins upon their death. Ainar may spend the gold he accumulates in a small village he encounters shortly after leaving his home, using a portal network that conveniently stretches across Helia to leap between the village and his current objective in an instant. The village’s artisans sell Ainar new weapons, armor, and potions, though they need more than just coin to create them.
The other items Ainar obtains are crafting materials. Plants and fungus picked up from the ground can be taken to an alchemist to brew empowering potions. Alchemical buffs to Ainar’s attributes are substantial, but they must be repurchased upon his death. It is the many bandits, soldiers, and monsters Ainar dispatches who drop the most important materials. Using loot as disparate as wood, rope, bone shards, shattered masonry, glowing gemstones, and metal ingots, the village’s blacksmith can forge Ainar successively more powerful swords, armor, and accessories. Echoing the most popular action-RPGs, this loot-heavy, crafting-based system ensures I always feel Ainar is making forward progress. Even if I take him into a battle where his strength is outmatched by enemy packs, the loot he acquires there can be used to forge new equipment or upgrade old pieces, giving him a better chance on his next attempt.
An appealing part of crafting and wearing equipment is that most pieces have a unique appearance on Ainar’s body. At the start of his journey, he wears humble peasant clothes and wields a makeshift sword. His early skirmishes with bandits earn him material that craft a leather hood, jerkin, and a simple blade, making him look like a highwayman. Later equipment outfits Ainar in armor made of stone, a handsome blue set embellished with protective coverings, and finally into a full suit of platemail that makes him truly embody the role of knight in shining armor. The many different armor sets create a sense of forward progress that’s almost as rewarding as the increased defensive and offensive power they provide.
Most of the equipment the blacksmith forges are straight upgrades; the lower the item appears in the crafting list and the more valuable the materials it takes to craft, the better it is. The exceptions are the necklaces. This category confers additional bonuses that have noticeable impacts on Ainar’s performance. My favorite is the necklace that damages enemies whenever Ainar picks up coins. Wearing this necklace transforms any enemy group into a cycle of pain; Ainar kills an enemy, who drops coins, which bombards other enemies when Ainar automatically scoops them up, softening them up to be killed faster, so they drop more coins, and so on.
Radiant’s other major action-RPG feature is a customizable skill tree. Using skill points Ainar earns after collecting enough experience points from defeated enemies, I can choose skills from three different categories. Most skills have multiple tiers with varied effects like improving item drop rates, increasing Ainar’s health or defense, or enhancing the damage he deals to enemies. Tucked in among these mundane skills are a few game-changing ones, like a protective shield generated by successive attacks, rewarding aggressive play with greater protection, and improvements to every step of Ainar’s three-hit combo attack. Nothing draws my attention to these skills. I must discover them through curious exploration of the skill tree.
Buried at the bottom of the skill tree are Ainar’s ultimate skills. These only have one tier but require a whopping five skill points to purchase. Despite this expense, the function of these skills are not always impressive. Skills that potentially resurrect Ainar when his hit point meter empties or allow him to keep his potion buffs after death sound useful, but with a 20% or lower chance to activate, they’re a waste when compared to skills that always provide a benefit, like the ability to wear two necklace accessories at once or allow Ainar’s elemental attacks to penetrate enemy shields.
There are clear better and worse choices in the skill tree. This would be disappointing if my choices mattered more by the time Ainar confronts Gultar. The player character earns so many skill points by the end of his journey that the question becomes which skills he doesn’t purchase rather than which ones he does. Fewer skill points and a better balanced skill tree would make this aspect of Radiant’s action-RPG design more interesting. The current system does result in Ainar inevitably becoming a god of light manifested on the battlefield, and that’s fun and rewarding in its own way.
Radiant’s core of fast, aggressive beat ’em up action supported by basic RPG character building creates a competent gameplay loop that keeps me engaged. I even find myself willingly replaying entire regions of Ainar’s four act quest to gather more materials and upgrade his armor before setting foot in the next. It’s a grind, but one in which I enjoy partaking.
While embracing this grind, I begin to notice how many of Radiant’s other features feel unrefined. There is functionally no difference between any of its environments. Ainar battles through a bandit-plagued highway, a haunted forest filled with sentient and territorial coconuts, a blood-soaked battlefield stalked by the reanimated skeletons of a fallen army, and Gultar’s mighty castle filled with his powerful army. These themes only feel like set dressing. The various decorations embellishing these areas have no interactive elements and barely block Ainar’s path. Only a region’s local enemies makes it feel distinct. The supposedly magical land of Helia feels like one long, bare hallway leading from Ainar’s seaside home to Gultar’s throne room.
Another feature that feels unrefined are quests. Ainar acquires new Quests that reward him with experience and money when they are completed. Despite suggesting a grand campaign filled with optional objectives and side missions, as in other action-RPGs, the only quests Ainar completes are ones that lead him directly to Gultar. The dedicated quest screen in the pause menu feels superfluous.
Other features feel unrefined through lack of explanation. A circle next to Ainar’s hit point meter fills as he attacks enemies and drains when he gets hit. Landing enough successive hits to fill this meter entirely causes Ainar to transform into an angelic knight, wielding a titanic sword of pure light, who can decimate entire screens of enemies in a few attacks. If the light meter and transformation mechanic is ever explained, I do not see it.
Shortly after leaving his island sanctuary, Ainar encounters a mage named Quinn who was turned to stone many years ago, when Gultar was first rising to power. She conveniently recovers from her affliction just in time to join Ainar’s quest. Quinn serves as a secondary player character, though again, I am never given instructions on how switching between each character works. Despite having a few unique abilities and apparently gaining power alongside Ainar, she does not visibly utilize new equipment or have her own skill tree. She feels included solely to support multiplayer, though with utility that goes unexplained in solo play and with significant features missing for a second player.
The final unrefined features in my notes seem a little like nitpicking, but they are nits I feel I must pick. After finishing the first narrative arc, Ainar earns the right to purchase a mercenary’s contract, adding a supporting non-player character who fights alongside him. The first mercenary he hires immediately gets trapped fighting something offscreen and dies during a dialog sequence. I never direct Ainar to hire another mercenary again. Around the same time, Ainar gains access to a Colosseum where he can fight endless waves of enemies. It’s a useful place for grinding experience and crafting drops but if it has any actual purpose, I never discover it. I help Ainar grind through every type of enemy and boss twice and the mode never seems to end or culminate in a useful purpose.
I also feel a lack of refinement in Radiant’s writing. Punctuation is present or not present according to idiosyncratic style rules discernible only to their original writer. Comma splices abound in character dialog. In at least one place, Ainar and Quinn each repeat the same sentence, and it doesn’t appear to be done ironically. Possibly, this suggests they are speaking in unison and Radiant’s text boxes are unable to portray this idea. My overall impression is the script is inexpertly written, possibly from a translation by someone who does not speak English as their first language, and cries out for a rigorous pass by a diligent copyeditor.
Despite Radiant’s grammatical incompetence, I did not struggle at any time to follow its simple narrative, blatant betrayals, and obvious plot twists. I have never expected a deep narrative from a beat ’em and I will not begin here.
The greatest obstacle I encounter is a result of the platform I choose to play on. On Radiant’s Switch version, immediately after beating the fourth boss who protects the entrance to Gultar’s keep and the ultimate level, the videogame either crashes or transitions into a green screen where a cutscene should play. It takes me many attempts before I realize that I can bypass this black screen by holding down the A button to “skip” the cutscene.
I am glad to report that Radiant’s Support team has been great about responding to this issue. My email was answered almost immediately by an individual named Oscar, who had me provide as much information as I could and offered me a free Steam code so I could properly finish the videogame. As I write this review, Radiant’s Switch version still has not been updated, but fixing bugs takes time, both from the team responsible for the fixes and from the platform for approving the update. I have every reason to believe that Radiant’s Switch version will soon be playable without difficulty to anyone who encounters the same errors as me.
Radiant: Guardians of Light is a sloppy but well-intentioned synthesis. Beat ’em ups, with their arcade origins emphasizing simple design in appealing and replayable environments, blends well with action-RPGs that emphasize a pleasant grind and ascendant character improvement. The elements of Radiant that most obviously embody these genres are its most entertaining and memorable parts. Too many of its other features feel unrefined. The world is one long, plain hallway with no real obstacles or distinguishing characteristics. Additions like the light meter and Ainar’s companion Quinn are not explained and have little impact on the core gameplay. Character dialog is filled with innumerable and distracting grammatical errors. Radiant has two good ideas and a few incomplete ones; I don’t have a bad time with it, but I cannot dispel the notion that I could have a better one.