An Ambitious and original JRPG that tries hard, but falls short.
After all, who wouldn't think that? The game's features read like a salivating RPG fanboy's dream list given life. You had an in-depth crafting system, an item development side-quest that expanded store inventories, a pokemon-esque monster training sim, and a huge ultra-difficult bonus dungeon that would challenge even the most talented (and most devoted) of RPG'ers. So, naturally, the hype was well deserved. Add in the fact that the game's developers, Level 5, were considered "do no wrong" industry darlings and you have a recipe for success.
Well, maybe.
I went into Rogue Galaxy expecting the best, and didn't quite feel that I got the best in return. To be fair, it is a good game, but it unfortunately dooms itself by trying to be too many games at once. A certain feeling of confusion pervades the game, as if you aren't sure if you are playing the game because you enjoy it, or simply playing it to brag that you finished it.
There is really only one thing that I felt Rogue Galaxy pulled off without a hitch, and obviously, it is the graphics that fall into this category. Though some of the dungeons have a very bland feeling to them, the majority of the game is filled with colorful hues, realistic looking foliage and some rather well drawn cell-shaded characters. As was the case with Nintendo's Wind Waker, this game proves that Cell shading, when done correctly, can be even better then typical 3D rendering. As far as late generation PS2 RPGs go, this game is one of the absolute best looking titles you're likely to see. Which is sad, given how close we are to the system's demise.
Unfortunately, that was about the only thing I didn't have a serious "beef" with in this game.
First of all, the music and the voice acting combined to really tempt me into turning off the sound while playing. the background songs were constantly repeated, and even during boss fights the music never changed. Combine this with the very bland and stereotypical voice acting and you get the feeling that the producers either didn't bother trying or the whole audio portion of the game was "phoned in" and no serious attention was paid to it. Cruel, perhaps...but that's the way I felt about it. I'll give them credit for having the main character's voice sound a bit more mature then your usual Japanese RPG hero, but that's about it.
Speaking of stereotypes, Rogue Galaxy's characters are some of the most stereotypical RPG heroes you'll ever see. Just about every single Japanese console RPG stereotype is covered within this one game. You have the orphaned hero with a mysterious power, the shy and demure girl who likes the aforementioned hero, the brooding rebel who is always leaning against a wall in the corner somewhere, the big-busted tribal chick, the robot, the grizzled war veteran, a talking cat, and a hooded stranger who continually gets the party out of tough jams they normally would not be able to wiggle out of on their own. It's like playing nearly every other RPG ever put out in the past 5 years, only it has been condensed into one dual-layer DVD.
The only two characters I DID like were Simon and Jupis. simon, with his thick scottish accent and his very blunt (but kind) way of analyzing everything made him the most amusing character of the bunch. Sadly, his secret and the story that unravels along with it, are only revealed in the end credits...which was incredibly disappointing. Once you learn who he is, why he hides his body and the status of his family, you can't help but totally fall in love with him. It's just a shame that this all happens in the end credits.
As for Jupis, he's so unashamed in his geekness that you can't help but love him and the way he talks. Jupis' tough but cautionary personality is similar to my own, and I really connected with him and his plight. His own ending that plays out near the end of the game is one of the more touching moments, since you learn that all of his anger has been misdirected and that he is more loved then he thinks.
Of course, the rest of the characters might be just as tolerable as those two if the main story was interesting. The sad fact is that Rogue Galaxy is one of those RPGs where you never know what you're doing or WHY you are doing it until a good 30 hours into the game. Not only that, but once you DO know what you are doing, you've lost your desire to trudge through it.
The story itself is just another "Orphan boy saves the world" deal, only this time you don't even realize the world needs saving until the game is half over. The first half of the game is spent wandering aimlessly around the galaxy trying to collect treasure for the pirate boss you've lied to in order to join his crew. As time goes on, you find out that your destiny, as well as the entire galaxy's destiny, lies in a sealed-off planet that houses a great evil that plans on taking over all of existence. So, yes, chances are this plot will grow old on most veteran RPG'ers very quickly. Or any gamers who realize this plot device was blatantly ripped off from the 1994 Sega Genesis game "Phantasy Star 4".
Now, if the plot is boring, I have to rely on combat to pick up the slack and keep me glued to the seat. Unfortunately, the game fails here too. While I've never been a fan of real-time combat, I *have* at times seen it done correctly and have tolerated it. RPGs like Secret of Mana, Shadowrun, and the Baldur's Gate series never bothered me with their own real-time combat systems, but when you see what they've done with Rogue Galaxy, it makes you wonder exactly what the designers were thinking.
To start off, there are no healing spells in the game. All healing must be done with items. This, in itself, isn't that bad. The problem is that the combat hasn't been tweaked to accomodate this philosophy, resulting in a battle system that feels imbalanced and poorly thought out. Most attacks will kill your characters in one hit, which isn't a surprise since the maximum amount of HP anyone can have is 999. This is strange, since those one hit kills often are a part of multi-hit enemy combos. It's almost funny how the majority of the game's enemies (even early on) are capable of doing maximum damage in one hit, and will perform 5 to 10 of those super attacks in one quickly initiated combo. Compounding matters is that the artificial intelligence that controls your party members never backs away from bosses even when you tell them too...which always results in them dying from one of those oft-used "999 damage uber attacks". This makes heal potions very valuable, and teaches you how important it is to stock the full amount of them at all times.
Another annoying aspect of the game's battle system is how many of the enemies require you to perform a power attack or a mario-style jump on their head in order to open themselves up to damage. Like the lack of healing spells, it isn't a bad idea...it's just implemented incorrectly. To put it bluntly, the game's camera makes it very difficult to gauge where you'll fall during your jumps, making the "Jump on its head" type of enemy very hard to deal with. As for the ones that require a charged power attack, they wouldn't be so bad if you didn't encounter so many of them. Near the end of the game, it gets very annoying. There simply isn't any logical reason as to why some enemies require you do that, and it makes the combat feel cheap and contrived. It would have been one thing if those same enemies could still be affected by special attacks and techniques, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
I could sit here forever and list all the tiny little annoyances I discovered in the game's combat system, but I don't have that kind of time.
As for the rest of the game, such as the item creation factory, the bug collecting "pokemon-esque" mini quest and the weapon crafting, I only bothered to do a little bit of item creation before realizing that beating the game and finally putting it tor est were more important then wasting time on yet another flawed system.
I'll give them credit with the weapon crafting, since it's quite easy to exploit...but the bug collecting and item creation side quests just have no real use in a game that can be beaten without any real leveling up at all. Even the last boss fight is underwhelming thanks to the enormously huge sword you are given to fight your enemy with. The whole games reeks of this kind of "Phoned in" gameplay, and it didn't sit too well with me to be completely honest.
Overall, Rogue Galaxy isn't a very good RPG. It is, however, a good game for teenage console RPG fans who like to play 100+ RPGs and who have absolutely no life whatsoever and can spend everyday playing a monotonously boring game.
For the rest of us, you really should pass. Though the game has its highpoints, such as Simon and Jupis, all I could think about while playing it was how happy I would be when I finally got time to play Ar Tonelico.
That pretty much sums up Rogue Galaxy.