Rogue Galaxy

I finally won this game so now I must review, I bought it when it was originally released in the United States, but I did not play through it the first time. On my initial play through I got annoyed and ended up playing something else, however this time I persevered and won the game. A game that is a notch or two below another of Level 5's Playstation 2 games "Dragon Quest 8" which was an absolutely amazing and beautiful game to look at. This one retains some of that games beauty, but it is a bit hampered by some of the game play elements and a few story ones as well. This game is about a young man on a desert planet named Rosa. His name is Jaster Rouge and his dream is to fly into space. Well he soon gets his wish as he is mistaken by a strange man named Simon and a robot named Steve as a famed monster hunter known as the Desert Claw. Well Jaster ends up on a ship called the Dorgengoa, a pirate ship where he meets even more people that he quickly develops friendships with as they have to fix the ship after a brief fight with monsters as they soon crash land on a jungle type planet. Yes, there are many planets with different environments to explore in this one. Even after it is discovered that Jaster is indeed not the Desert Claw he has made such ties that everyone who knows him talks the captain of the ship into letting him stay. This, however, is just the tip of the iceberg as the crew will have to go from planet to planet trying to find clues that can help untangle the mystery of the planet of Eden, a planet said to hold unbelievable treasure. As I said for the most part the game was fun, fighting is done in real time, you have your side quests and you have a rather expansive story. The graphics are rather good, the characters look really good for Playstation 2, however I found some of the environments a bit lacking compared to the more lush "Dragon Quest 8". Fighting at times is a bit of a bother as some enemies you have to use different techniques than the norms just to inflict damage. You have your main weapon which usually consists of a melee weapon and a sub weapon that usually consists of a firing weapon though some characters have shooting weapons as their main and sub and in the case of the warrior lady from the jungle planet her main is shooting and her sub is actually a melee. They all learn abilities by collecting items. When you collect a certain set of items you gain new abilities. There are also sub games featuring collecting insects and creating weapons and items in a factory, but I never really scratched the surface of these things as there was enough to do without having to worry about these things and it is easy enough to win the game without creating the things in the factory. So another problem is that there is a bit to much to do as the side quests prove to complicated at times. The main story is good, but the ending of the game focused a bit to much on the daughter of the pirate Kisala rather than Jaster who is titled as the only one who can save the day at one point. The villains are somewhat interesting, taking the form of a corporate boss and his rather cute secretary and a mad scientist type. However, there is a lot of mention of Rune energy at the end of the game and the way it is mentioned one would think that this was mentioned throughout the story and was common knowledge, however other than the end I cannot recall it ever getting a shout out. Still, overall it was rather fun, fix some of its shortcomings and it would be up there with "Dragon Quest 8".

Let me start off by saying this game is developed by Level 5, the company who is behind the games like Dark Cloud, Dark Cloud 2, Dragon Quest VII. Although I've played none of the previous games from Level 5 but Rogue Galaxy has made me interested to check them all out.

Story: Many people have criticized the storyline for not being good enough, it is certainly right to some extent, although the plot doesn't pickup when it needs to and in the final chapters of the game the story takes an emotional turn that isn't bad at all. In somewhat middle chapters of the game the story line loses its appeal but as I said before it picks well enough in the final chapters that makes the whole experience worthwhile. I would like to give the story 7 out of 10.

Graphics: I don't have any complain about the Cel-shaded graphics they are displayed and pushed to the limit & and the graphics certainly deliver on all aspects so I would like to give it a 7 out of 10.

Controls: Certainly the last and not the least, the controls here in the game are pretty addictive, you can easily jump into the action and understand the whole concept in about 2-days at least. The Revelationflow in the game resembels much to the Final Fantast XII Gambet System where you can upgrade and unlock powerful attacks and spells. Although sometimes it feels refreshing and sometimes it feels like being repetitive so I would like to give it a 7 out of 10.

Bottomline: There you've it folks, The Controls are there, the Graphics are excellent the Story has its ups and downs but it delivers in the end and the final soundtrack that'll steal your heart-away and some excellent voice acting. It is not to say that this game is excellent it has its share of weaknesses but the number its strength is much greater than its weaknesses. You would definitely wanna try this tile out either your in for the game-play,story or just like seeing the pretty cut-scenes all in all its a good entertainment and thats what counts.

Storyline, Graphics, Sound and Voicework are well done but not spectacular. Storyline has a few clichés but overall fantastic. Graphics are good in-game and in cut-scenes but some of the graphics (like the ground and surrounding objects) are not done as well. Sound is slightly above average. Voicework for about 90% of the game is top notch but once in awhile certain characters lines come out flat sounding.

Fighting is fun but can get repetitive probably because the dungeons are so damn long. I used a guide for most dungeons and I still found them to long. Not a huge deal though.

All the side quests and extra things to do make this much more fleshed out then the roughly 50 hour length would indicate. One more thing: To many menus and sub-menus to do what amounts to simple things.

After all the bitchin I still found this game well worth the money and a fun adventure. (If you don't have the guide then you're better off being a hardcore player)

GRAPHICS 8: Definitely good, though I prefer more real looking games. The cut scenes are beautiful nonetheless. MUSIC 9: Great, but there are some songs on the soundtrack I could do without. STORY 7: Way too predictable at many times throughout the game. One of 2 main flaws that hold this game back. VOICEOVERS 6: The second of the main flaws. Some voices are good, but some are god-awful as well. GAMEPLAY 10: The main reason why I like the game very much. I'd have to say that the battle system is definitely the best real time battle system in a Role Playing Game that I have ever seen. Previously my favorite was Kingdom Hearts 2. KH 2 still beats this game senseless in terms of story and voice work though.